


Synchronized Hearts

by Vittarius



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°), Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Sugar Daddy, Anal Fingering, And Second Time Blowjobs ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°), Angst, Awkward Boners, Drama, Falling In Love, First Time Blow Jobs, Fluff, Frottage, M/M, Masturbation, Rutting, Unrequited Crush
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-05
Updated: 2017-02-02
Packaged: 2018-08-29 02:58:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 42,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8472832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vittarius/pseuds/Vittarius
Summary: University/Sugar Daddy AU.Yuri is the typical college student struggling to make it to the end of the month. Stuck in an underpaid job with an abusive boss, he gets fired… and with that, his income source is over.What is he going to tell his family, who is still waiting in Japan for him to finish his studies?  Unable to tell them the truth, he is just about to explode.But then, in a twist of fate, he runs into a lonely stranger. Yuri needs money, this man has money, and unbelievably, they come to an agreement. Maybe having a pampering sugar daddy isn't the most awful situation he could be in.A not so slow burn, rated M for eventual smut because we all know where this is leading to.





	1. Bitter

The insistent thumping of wood against wood was dry and balanced as he rubbed the table with more strength than necessary. One, two, three, four, and again, one, two, three… He removed his hand and looked at the wet spot, still dark brown. With a sigh, he started rubbing again. Coffee stains were a real nightmare.  
  
“Katsuki!” The shout startled him and he dropped the cloth. “Stop punishing that table and go take the orders. There are customers waiting.”  
  
“Y- yes! I’m sorry, Mr. Cialdini!” Yuri nodded and apologized, a faint pink flush coloring his cheeks. A few customers had turned around and were staring at him. Embarrassed, he finished picking up his mess and went towards the bar to grab some menus. Celestino Ciardini, his boss, rolled his eyes with annoyance as Yuri approached an unattended table and started taking the orders.  
  
He rushed over the place, almost running from table to table, listing the available dishes and scribbling everything down on his notepad. After some minutes, he stopped in front of the last waiting customer.  
  
“Hello, sir. I apologize for your waiting. Do you want to read the menu or maybe should I offer you our Chef’s suggestions?” he spoke almost without breathing.  
  
The customer didn’t answer, so Yuri lifted his head, puzzled by the silence. The man was looking through the window, and Yuri thought he might have not heard him. He coughed slightly to get his attention.  
  
The man spoke suddenly as if he had just awoken from a dream. “It’s my first time here. In this city,” he explained, still without tearing his eyes apart from the window. “Had I known it was so beautiful I would have come sooner.”  
  
Yuri blinked in silence and the man continued, “I don’t know what’s so alluring about this place. Maybe it’s the people? It’s lively but not crowded. I like that.”  
  
His voice was low and vibrant, and Yuri noticed he also had a slight accent. He thought it sounded maybe European, and it somewhat reminded him of a Polish classmate with whom he shared a class, but he wasn’t sure.  
  
He looked at the man again, who seemed still lost in his thoughts. Should he repeat the question? Should he wait?  
  
The man was wearing sunglasses, so Yuri couldn’t really read his expression. However, he had a kind smile, and that eased him a little. His eyes traveled up to his hair and stopped there. It was ash blond and a little messy on the left side. It looked so soft and enticing that Yuri had to fight back the urge to touch it. He snapped back to the present when he heard the man speak. Mortified, he noticed that the customer was looking at him expectantly, waiting for an answer to a question he hadn’t heard. Yuri blushed as he realized he had been staring.  
  
“I don’t want to bore you with my stories. What do you recommend?” the man repeated slowly, much to Yuri’s relief.  
  
“Uh… well. Today’s specials are-“ he mumbled, still fighting against his embarrassment.  
  
“No,” the man interrupted softly. “Not what the restaurant recommends. I want to know what _you_ recommend.”  
  
Yuri blinked and his mouth gaped open. The question was so unexpected… However, he thought of his favorite dish and a faint smile appeared on his face.  
  
“What is it?” the man asked with curiosity, using his hand to support his head.  
  
Yuri blushed crimson and replied in a low whisper, “The pork cutlet bowl, sir.”  
  
“Pork cutlet bowl?” he repeated, pronouncing every word separately as if he had never heard it before. “What’s so special about it?”  
  
“Everything,” Yuri replied a little bit too loud, and he immediately felt dumb. He dried his sweaty hands on his pants and coughed in an attempt to calm his sore throat.  
  
“I’ll take your word, then,” the customer said, and his voice was almost a purr. “I’ll have the pork cutlet bowl, please.”  
  
Yuri released the breath he hadn’t realized he had been holding and wrote down the order. For some reason, that man made him feel as if he were taking an exam he wasn’t allowed to fail.  
  
He came back to work, unable to explain what had come into him. He caught himself looking every now and then in the man’s direction. He looked familiar but not quite, like a puzzle to be solved. A very tough one. He knew he had it on the tip of his tongue but he just couldn’t remember where he might have seen him. It was driving him insane. When he couldn’t bear it anymore, he left his place behind the counter and went to the kitchen.  
  
Time flied, and he had almost forgotten about the damn man when he heard yet another shout.  
  
“Katsuki!” his boss scolded him one more time, popping his head inside the kitchen. “A man is asking for the check! Why the hell are you in here? You better not be stealing food again.”  
  
Yuri walked out of the kitchen and his boss smacked him in the back of his head. “Table seven. Hurry up, Katsuki. That’s the last warning.”  
  
“Sorry, sir,” he sighed and bowed, hoping his boss wouldn’t notice the crumbs in the front of his apron.  
  
He quickly printed the check and walked towards _that_ table.  
  
“It was… It was the best thing I’ve ever tasted!” the man exclaimed as soon as he arrived. “I can’t believe I’ve never had a pork cutlet bowl in my life. It was…” he struggled trying to find the right words. “Amazing!” he said beaming.  
  
“I’m glad you enjoyed it, sir,” Yuri said with a monotone voice, although he was smiling on the inside.  
  
“I surely did. It looks like I’ll be coming back here sooner than I thought. Thank you…” he tilted his head to read the name tag that Yuri had pinned over his apron. “Yuri,” he whispered.  
  


* * *

  
As he had promised, the man came back to the restaurant the following week for a new ration of Yuri’s suggestion. And on Friday. And that Thursday. And the day it rained. And when Yuri realized, the man had started coming almost every day.  
  
He used to sit always in the same place by the window, and Yuri had started to involuntary reserve him the table. He was still troubled trying to remember why he felt he looked familiar, but as the days went by he was slowly letting it go.  
  
But it was good, Yuri had finally decided. He would ask him his name and start a conversation… and if he felt confident enough, he could even give him his number.  
  
He rubbed the surface of his implicitly-assigned table and rearranged the pink carnation that lay lopsided against the vase. He fetched a napkin holder with a number seven printed on it and placed it next to the vase. Walking backwards so he could see better the composition, he frowned. After approaching again, he moved the flower slightly and stepped away from the table to stop worrying about it.  
  
Once inside the kitchen, he felt his phone vibrating in his pocket. He walked out through the back door to have some privacy and picked up.  
  
“Mum! What a surprise!” he greeted.  
  
_“Is it the right time? You weren’t sleeping, right?”_ his mother asked.  
  
“No, no,” he laughed. “It’s almost 12 PM here. I was working.”  
  
_“That’s okay. How are you, Yuri? I haven’t talked to you in ages. How’s Detroit treating you?”_  
  
“It’s good, mum.”  
  
_“And the weather?”_ she further asked.  
  
“It’s getting colder. They say we might have snow next week.”  
  
_“How nice. And do you have any friends yet? You’ve always had troubles making friends.”_  
  
“Yes, mum.” He rearranged his glasses over the bridge of his nose, awkwardly. He faked a smile even when he knew his mother couldn’t see him. “I’m sharing an apartment with one of my classmates. He’s really nice. He’s a freshman, too. And he comes from Thailand, so he actually understands how it feels to be so far away from home.”  
  
_“That’s good, Yuri,”_ her mother replied and Yuri noticed she sounded off.  
  
“Is everything okay?” he asked worried. “How are things at home?”  
  
There was a moment of silence, and he could feel his mother looking for the right words.  
  
_“Sweety, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”_  
  
“What is it, mum?” Her voice was strained and alarms were ringing in Yuri’s head.  
  
_“Vicchan died last night,”_ she said with a broken whisper. Yuri’s heart wrenched. It couldn’t be… it just couldn’t be.  
  
“How…? What happened?” he asked, tears already flooding his eyes.  
  
_“It started with small bulges and they tried to operate but he just couldn’t recover. They told me it’s a common disease in poodles. I wish I could’ve done something. I’m so sorry.”_  
  
“It’s not your fault, mom,” Yuri assured her holding back a sob. “I just wish I had been there. To say goodbye,” he regretted.  
  
_“He died peacefully and without pain. He’s not suffering anymore.”_  
  
“Yeah,” he whispered. The lump in his throat wouldn’t go and he couldn’t breathe, let alone speak.  
  
_“I should have called earlier. I’m sorry. Everything happened so fast.”_  
  
“It’s okay, mum.”  
  
The line went silence as none of them knew what to say.  
  
“I should probably go back to work,” he said after some moments. “Thank you for calling. Tell dad I miss him.”  
  
They said their goodbyes and he hung up.  
  
He stood there, in the back alley, as tears ran down his cheeks. Vicchan had been a part of his life since he was a kid, and it was such a foreign feeling to think he wouldn’t see him again. He tried to remember the last time he had taken him for a walk, or petted his head or played with him. But he just couldn’t remember the exact moment. It was as if every memory he had of his dog had stayed in Japan, and he couldn’t grasp any of them. He couldn’t let all the memories fade away, it wasn’t right.  
  
He choked back a sob and tried to compose himself. After a few deep breathes he decided he was okay and returned to the restaurant.  
  
Once inside, he found Cialdini glaring at him.  
  
“Where are the customers of the table three?” he asked with no other explanation.  
  
Yuri looked around and saw the empty table with half eaten dishes on it.  
  
“They left?” he replied, puzzled. He was still too affected to understand what his boss meant.  
  
“Yes, they left. Without paying,” Cialdini snapped. “Because you weren’t watching the place as you’re supposed to be.”  
  
Yuri gasped. “I’m sorry, Mr. Cialdini. I’m so sorry. It won’t happen again,” he begged, once more in the verge of tears.  
  
“No, you’re right. It won’t. That was your last warning, I told you so. Come back tomorrow to pick up your final paycheck.”  
  
“Mr. Cialdini!” he cried.  
  
“Get out of here, Katsuki,” he demanded.  
  
“But… what am I going to do?” he asked, more to himself than to his boss.  
  
“You should have thought of it before using your phone during your shift.”  
  
“Please, Mr. Cialdini, there has to be something I could do…”  
  
“Well, now that you mention it. You should give me the money I lost because of those customers. If you do that, then we are even.”  
  
“But I don’t have that amount of money…”  
  
“Too bad for you, kid,” he replied, unaffected. “Now buzz off. Unlike others, I have to work,” he grunted, hurrying back to his office and finishing the conversation.  
  
Yuri shook his head, unable to believe what was happening. He walked towards the bar in slow motion, his moves almost robotic. With shaking hands he unlaced his apron and folded it thoroughly before placing it over the counter. He wanted to delay that moment as much as he could. His eyes stopped over the name tag, the painful proof that he no longer belonged there. He went to the back office one last time and retrieved his coat and other personal effects from the locker. They seemed so useless now. Why did he even have a hair comb stored in there? Or that broken key chain he just couldn’t bring himself to throw away? He slammed the little door shut, suddenly startled by his own outburst. He inhaled deeply, trying to calm himself, and exited the office.  
  
Holding his breath, he walked slowly trough the tables. His face tense and his fists clenched at his sides. For a moment, he was barely aware of his favorite customer sitting by the window. Maybe waiting for him? But it didn’t matter anymore. He probably wouldn’t see him again, ever.  
  
He thought bitterly about his plan earlier that day, which now seemed so far away. It wouldn’t have worked, anyway, his cynic side told him. As everything else in his life. It had been a fairy tale he had made up inside his head, but midnight had come, and the spell was broken. It was over.  
  
He walked out of the restaurant and stopped after a few steps, lacking the courage to look back. He knew if he did, he would end up crying. And he didn’t want to make a scene.  
  
He resumed his slow walk, not even knowing where he intended to go. Should he go back to his apartment? The wind whistled in his ears, surprisingly clearing his mind.  
  
No, he decided. He needed time to think, alone, and the overwhelming presence of Phichit would be self-defeating. So he walked, idly bumping against other pedestrians, mumbling empty apologies. But it wasn’t _enough._  
  
He put on his headphones and fought back the tears. Everything was crumbling down in his life. What was he going to do? A sob escaped his lips before he could stop it. Maybe if he asked Mr. Cinardi for another chance…? Yes, that would work, wouldn’t it? It had to! It couldn’t end like this.  
  
He had started crying without realizing, his vision blurry and his steps clumsy. His hand felt cold against his cheek as he tried to stop the tears. A hiccup made his whole body jerk as he placed a feet over the road, already wet by the light drizzle. And he was just about to cross the street when a car stopped in front of him. He yelped, thinking he had been so close to being hit by it. But when the driver’s window rolled down, he caught a glimpse of ash blonde hair and the thumping of his heart slowed down.  
  
“Are you alright?” his favorite customer asked.  
  
“Yeah, you didn’t hit me. It’s okay.” Yuri sniffed and looked away in an attempt to hide his puffy eyes.  
  
“That's not what I meant. I saw you at the restaurant. You looked upset?” It wasn’t a question, but it still held some inquisitiveness on it. “Did something happen?”  
  
Yuri felt awkward talking to a half-stranger in the middle of the road, but ignoring the question would be rude.  
  
“How did you find me?” he asked instead of replying. “You followed me?”  
  
The man shook his head but then sighed. “I was worried.”  
  
“You shouldn’t be. You don’t know me at all. But yes, something did happen. As I’m sure you heard, I got fired. Not my best day.” He waved a vague goodbye and tried to walk away but the man stopped him.  
  
“Yuri, wait!”  
  
Yuri turned around again and faced the pearl-gray Maserati parked in front of him.  
  
"What?" Yuri snapped, harsher than he intended to.  
  
The man looked uncomfortable and glanced away before biting his lip. He was paler, and was that a light blush tinting his cheeks?  
  
"Where are you going? You shouldn’t be walking with this upcoming storm. It’s cold.” He smiled shyly. “Come on, I could drive you, if you want."  
  
Yuri's eyes widened at the suggestion, and he was already going to decline when the other spoke again. "I mean obviously you don't have to, but I'm just offering. I thought… Well, I…” he trailed off and snapped his mouth shut. Silence fell around them as none of them knew what to say. They looked at each other while Yuri tried to make a decision.  
  
Behind them a car honked, startling them and breaking the moment. Yuri sniffed and another gust of wind made him tremble. Then he knew what he had to do.  
  
He took out his phone and paused the music that was still playing. Slowly, he approached the car. "Uhm, yeah. I guess that's fine."  
  
The man stretched a little and opened the passenger door. Yuri stared at the dark leather seats until there was another honk that made him jolt. He got in the car quickly and closed the door. As he was putting on his seat belt, the man ignited the engine and the car got off with an almost inaudible hum. He turned on the radio and a soft instrumental music filled the air.  
  
"You never told me,” the man said then, keeping his eyes on the road. “Where am I heading?" he asked, waiting for the other to give him directions.  
  
The question made Yuri realize that he didn’t have a plan. He had only accepted the ride because he needed to escape from the ruthless wind, but he lacked of any actual place he wanted to go to.  
  
"I… I don’t really know,” he admitted. “I don’t have anywhere to go.”  
  
The man nodded and pursed his lips, a thought taking over his mind. He turned right and started driving through E Warren Avenue.  
  
They had been driving for not more than five minutes, stopping at almost every traffic light because traffic was picking up for lunch time. As if his stomach knew the time, Yuri flushed as it growled in hunger.  
  
"Sorry. I skipped breakfast today," he apologized.  
  
The man shook his head dismissing it. He kept driving for a couple of meters, before speaking again. "You know, I 'm feeling pretty hungry myself. I haven’t had lunch yet.” He made a sad smile. “I’ll miss my share of pork cutlet bowl.”  
  
Yuri looked at him, puzzled. “You can still eat it. It’s a regular on the menu.”  
  
The man looked at him for a second and the sunlight allowed Yuri to catch the shape of his eyes behind the thick sunglasses. “No, I can’t,” he said.  
  
Yuri was about to reply when the man interrupted him. “My question was, do you feel like picking up something to eat?”  
  
Yuri whipped his head towards the other, questioning if getting a ride with that man had been the right decision. There was a lump in his throat that he tried to get rid of with a cough. The tension in the space of the front of the car was suddenly heavy and the blond backtracked as he caught the smell of nervousness coming from his passenger.  
  
“It’s just lunch. Everybody’s got to eat lunch, right? You said you haven’t eaten and I just… uh.”  
  
Yuri watched the man blush and thought that a lunch wouldn’t hurt. “Yeah, okay,” he accepted.  
  
He threw a tight smile and the other reciprocated. “Do you have somewhere you would like to go? You can pick. Actually, you _should_ pick, I don’t know much of this city yet.”  
  
“Let me see…” Yuri replied taking a finger to his lip. “I really don’t care what it is as long as I can eat but I know where you can get the best pizza of all Detroit.”  
  
The man laughed and turned on his blinker. “Just tell me where.”  
  
They drove for another fifteen minutes before stopping in front of Dan  & Vi’s. Yuri had been day dreaming out of the window, so he hadn’t been paying that much attention to the trip. But when the car stopped he turned around to study the man’s face. He knew the area didn't offer much at all, but the place was a truly hidden gem, totally worth the trip. However, his driver had a neutral expression, maybe an eyebrow a little bit more arched than usual.  
  
“It’s worth it, I swear,” he smiled.  
  
“I know. I trust you,” the man joked.  
  
They crossed the road and walked in the small restaurant. As soon as they entered the place, the inviting scent of toasting bread forced them to close their eyes and sniff. They approached the counter and the sight of all that food on display made Yuri’s stomach growl again.  
  
While they were waiting for their turn, Yuri talked about how good the ‘Deli Slice’ was, so they ordered that and some chips, too. The man insisted on paying and the argued a little about it before Yuri finally let it go.  
  
They sat by the window, pinching their food and sipping slowly their sodas.  
“You know,” Yuri said after a long but not uncomfortable silence. “I’ve never asked your name. You know mine but… I just never asked.”  
  
“Victor,” the man replied. Yuri’s face tensed and Victor frowned. “Did I say something wrong?”  
  
“No, it’s just… My dog was called Victor, and he passed away recently. It’s still hard for me to think about it.”  
  
“I’m sorry,” Victor said and Yuri nodded.  
  
“I’ve got him since I was eight. We always called him Vicchan, but his real name was Victor, for the Russian figure skater? Everyone told me it was a silly name for a dog, but I thought it was just right. At that moment, I admired him a lot. It’s a shame he’s not around anymore. He was really gifted. I don’t blame him for quitting after what happened, though.”  
  
He looked at his partner and noticed he had his mouth open in surprise.  
  
“Is everything okay?” Yuri asked.  
  
“Yes, I… I need some air,” he replied suddenly rising to his feet. “I’ll be right back.”  
  
He left the restaurant and Yuri looked confused through the window as the man circled the building and stepped out of his sight. He stared at the half eaten pizza already getting cold and his heart ached. He asked for the leftovers to be wrapped up and exited the restaurant as well.  
  
He found Victor at the back of the restaurant. His back pressed lazily against the wall and a cigarette between his long fingers. He took a drag as Yuri approached, blowing the smoke slowly. Yuri coughed when the wind shoved it right towards his face. He noticed that Victor was shaking, and not because of the chill air. He looked distressed almost on the brink of tears.  
  
“Victor?” he asked softly.  
  
“Even after all this time, I still can’t escape,” he whispered and Yuri frowned.  
  
“What do you mean? What’s wrong?”  
  
“I want to stop thinking about it, but everywhere I go it happens again. I thought that maybe this time I could be free, but I was wrong.” His voice trailed slowly, like his words were unwilling to take flight. “I loved what I did, it was my reason to live. And every second I spend away from the rinks is so painful, you have no idea _how painful_ it is.”  
  
“The rinks?” Yuri gasped as everything started to make sense. The accent, the reason his face was so familiar, why he always hid himself behind-…  
  
_Sunglasses._  
  
Victor took his sunglasses off and Yuri’s eyes widened. Almost robotically his hand rose upwards only to stop inches away from Victor’s face. The expression of the man was unreadable, his eyes almost as still as some bill board poster.  
  
“It’s you,” Yuri said amazed.  
  
“It’s me,” Victor replied, a bitter smile curving his lips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos and reviews make my heart bit faster.
> 
> Also, as English is not my natural language there might be some mistakes or weirdly worded phrases. I would really appreciate any advice and/or correction.


	2. Sour

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning:  
> This chapter contains: hand holding.

Victor got off the bus and looked around. There were no paparazzi, or fans with banners, not even a local journalist. With what he thought a relieved sigh, he dragged his suitcase towards the crystal doors of the bus terminal.  
  
It was quiet, as was to be expected at such an ungodly hour and when he crossed the wide entrance, only a cold morning breeze welcomed him. He circled the gate and his steps echoed over the frozen pavement. A young couple walked by his side with huge rucksacks, talking loudly about how late it was and who had the tickets and ‘of course you have forgotten something, you always do’. He lost the voices when they crossed the doors, still gesturing anxiously.  
  
He stumbled and sat down hard on the sidewalk, waiting for almost an hour until a cab appeared driving through Baltimore Avenue. He stopped it swiftly and climbed on it.

“Where are we headed to?” the taxi driver asked.  
  
Victor hesitated and dug in his back pocket to retrieve his phone.

“Uh… Merrill Ave and Coolidge Highway,” he read from his email. He had contacted an estate agent form Detroit via internet, and the man had told Victor that he had a house located in a nice quiet place where he wouldn’t be disturbed. Which was everything he needed.

The driver whistled and looked at his passenger through the rearview mirror. “Nice neighborhood, isn’t it?” he said.

“I suppose,” Victor mumbled.  
  
The taxi turned right and sped up through Woodward Avenue, without stopping at the changing lights of Delaware Street. He drove faster than Victor would’ve liked, and he was unable to admire the view.  
  
When they reached their destination, Victor blinked in surprise. It was prettier than he had expected, with a nice front yard and two leafy trees sheltering the house. He didn’t want it to be pretty. He didn’t want another thing to miss when the urge to leave dragged him away.  
  
He leaned back against the seat and breathed deeply, wondering what in the hell he was supposed to do now. Life was forcing him to start over and over again. He held no resentment, no anger, but he felt he had lost his sense of purpose in the world. His life in Russia had made him a rich man and he had no need to ever work again. Still, he missed having an objective, a routine. And escaping from one place to another wasn’t going to solve that.  
  
But he feared. He was afraid -terrified, actually- of staying for too long surrounded by the same things. He had to be constantly moving, or the memories would start haunting him again.  
  
It was something about the distance. Funny thing, but he seemed unable to think clearly without stepping away from the subject. This time, the subject was his past… but for some reason he couldn’t walk away from it. Because now, his past walked faster than ever. It was proverbial the elephant in the room, he could pretend to ignore it or not talk about it, but it was always _there_.  
  
What he needed now was another distraction, a little bit of peace and comfort to make the pain fade away at least for a while.  
  
He paid the driver and stepped out of the cab. Looking up at his new house, he took in the smell of freshly-cut grass. He aimed forward as the cab pulled away.  
  
After unlocking the front door, Victor pushed it lightly and it swung open with ease. The first thing he noticed was the strong scent of lavender mixed with bleach. The company had obviously sent someone to rub the floors before his arrival.  
  
Everything was disposed as he had asked. Dark-wooden bookshelves covered the walls and a new leather couch was placed in the middle of the living room. They even had added a fluffy pillow near the fireplace for Maccachin.  
  
At the bus station he hadn’t been allowed to travel with a dog, so he had been forced to send his precious pet by plane. He hadn’t arrived yet, but he would in any time soon as well as the rest of his luggage.  
  
He dropped in the couch and took off his boots. Massaging his aching feet, he tried to ignore the aftermaths of his profession. Every callus and scar had a date and a name. The nasty one on his big toe was called ‘I finally nailed my first quad Lutz’. And the little silver scar running over his pinky toe? He remembered that one very well. That was a souvenir he got after his first competition. He had been so nervous, _so nervous_. Everything had gone well; he had been placed second, which was something to be very proud of. Still, his shaking fingers had betrayed him and he had cut himself taking off his skates after finishing his program.  
  
He hissed after squeezing an especially sensitive part and closed his eyes. It was happening again. Why couldn’t he just think about something else?  
  
He left the couch and looked for the bathroom, dropping his clothes to the floor as he walked.  
  
He stepped into the shower, toes flinching as they touched the chilled ceramic floor. He turned the dial, new and shiny, releasing thousands of soft drops that darkened his hair and trickled down his back. His eyes fell closed over and over as the water poured down, his mind fading into dullness. The sensation of the steamy water calmed him, taking his mind of things. Of all the things he didn’t want to think about. It was the water, the heat, the steam that made everything foggy. His mind swirled and he felt like standing under an everlasting waterfall. Ever so beautiful, but it couldn't last, he knew that.  
  
He grabbed the soap and started rubbing his chest, trying to remove the odor from the trip. He washed his legs slowly, and when his fingers brushed over the long jagged scar that ran all across his thigh, he decided he had had enough. So he walked out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist and slumped into bed.

  


* * *

  
There was wetness in his face when he woke up, and he smiled weakly as Maccachin licked his nose.

He stood up and walked idly to the kitchen. After a rushed breakfast, he dropped over the couch and watched a silly movie while petting Maccachin. He dozed off only to wake up when his stomach growled in hunger. He cursed himself for missing the end of the movie and aimed towards the fridge. He frowned when he noticed the lack of vegetables and proteins. There was some canned food stored in the cupboards, too, but he was starting to crave something more elaborated. To fulfill his wishes, he would have to buy groceries or eat outside, but his second day in Detroit hadn’t been any better than the first, and he hadn’t left the house yet.

But now he had no more excuses. The company had brought his car in the morning, and the story he had been telling himself about not wanting to use the public transport was no longer valid. He placed two bowls with food and water for Maccachin and put on his coat.  
He drove casually, using the GPS to find gastronomic references, and pulled over in front of a small yet nice restaurant. He picked a table near the window and sat down, looking at the people walk by. The service sucked, and he waited longer than he would have considered acceptable. However, he had time, so when the waiter finally arrived he was in a good mood.

The waiter was shy and blushed easily, something Victor found cute. He teased him a little to study his reaction, and the boy reddened but he didn’t look explicitly offended or uncomfortable. Maybe that was the distraction he had been needing.

So with a promise and a wink, the fun started.

Victor couldn't help the smile that stretched across his lips every time he noticed Yuri loosening up or staring at him. He knew this game, it'd been a while since he'd played, but he was pretty sure he was still just as good at it. And if memory served him correctly, at one point in time he had been more than good at it. Not in the same way that he had been good at skating. That was the result of years of training and effort, and practicing. This, on the other hand, was entirely natural. In high school, he'd discovered it first with the girls around his age, when he was looking for friendship. Then with the college girls he'd met while travelling. Then, and perhaps the most enjoyably, was with some of the other skaters during long trips. It had started out as need and basic depravity, but after a few times, Victor had realized how partial he was to seeing another male writhe under him. Even knowing that his preferences would have been frowned upon in his country, he was able to recognize that this new part of him was what made him who he really was. That was the real Victor. However, after his coach had found out, he had been forced to stop in order to protect his public image. No Russian idol would have been socially accepted if such a controversial new spread, not even a golden medalist.

But he wasn't anywhere near his coach anymore. And nothing stopped him from playing.

The green light was given when he had seen Yuri arrive to work with the red and blue scarf. It had the words ‘University of Detroit’ printed all over it, which was perfect in every way. That meant college age, _legal_ age.

Everything had almost gone down the drain when the boy got fired, but with a little bit of work he had put things on wheels once more.

And there he was, uncovered again.

He took another drag as Yuri involuntary dropped the bag of Dan & Vi’s to the floor.

“This doesn’t make any sense,” Yuri said suddenly. “Why?” he asked. “Why here? Why now?”

He had a point, Victor thought. His own actions had been stupid, even though they’d seemed logical before. “I agree,” he conceded, blowing the words with a puff of smoke.

But Yuri wasn’t going to stop there. “Everyone thought you were dead or… or something. You disappeared after _that_. You were fucking _gone_ , and for how many years?” he snapped.

“I know what I did. And I know _why_ I did it,” Victor replied, his voice low and not at all soothing.

“So what? You decided to become some kind of hermit for the rest of your life? You think that would work? Just to throw away everything you ever strove for?”

Victor frowned. This was the exact opposite of what he was looking for when he had decided to ask Yuri out. “Do you think it will snow tonight?” he whispered.

“What?”

“I don’t like the looks of that sky,” he mumbled.

“What are you talking about? This is serious. You’re a literal legend, standing next to me and you act like… you act like this was a… Are you really asking me about the weather?” Yuri finished, indignation making his tone at least two octaves higher.

“I just hate storms,” Victor said as an explanation.

“You’re afraid of them?” he guessed.

Victor pursed his lips and a sarcastic smile made his perfect teeth shine. “Of storms?” he snorted. “There are much more things to be afraid of.”

“Like what?” Yuri asked.

Victor looked up before replying, his eyes lost in the dark and thick clouds. “Loneliness, mostly. But also fear of commitment, of failure, of never finding love. I could go on.”

“I thought you had your life all figured out. You always looked all successful and… happy.” Yuri didn’t know if he felt more surprised or sad.

“There is at least one lie in that sentence. It can be hard to understand that being successful doesn’t always imply that your life is solved. Mine certainly isn’t. The cliché but still relatable phrase ‘money doesn’t buy happiness’. It doesn’t buy stability either.”

“So you weren’t happy skating?” Yuri concluded, still confused.

“Of course I was. Happiness isn’t all about doing what you love. There are other things in life that everyone needs.”

“And what do you need?”

“Right now? Something to distract myself. Company,” Victor said casually, as if he were talking about prices at the supermarket.

“That’s why you’re here?”

“Kind of.”

“What do you mean? You have other reasons?”

“Yuri. A man without a layer of mystery on top isn’t any fun, is it?”

Yuri sighed and the corner of his eyes narrowed. “Okay, you win. I won’t ask any more questions.”

“Thank you. I really appreciate that.”

“But,” he added holding up a finger. “I expect an answer at some point.”

Victor smiled at that. It implied that there would be at the least a second meeting. He offered his hand to seal the deal and was pleased as he felt Yuri’s small hand thread over his fingers.

Yuri stared into Victor’s eyes with a mix of nervousness and anxiousness. He had never imagined they would be so different from what they looked on TV. There it was, that spectacular aquamarine looking at him eagerly, but with also a shade of gray, and blue and was that green? It couldn’t be.

Victor leaned forward and his hand brushed the small of Yuri's back. They shared breath for a moment, and Victor noticed his eyes starting to hood. Yuri’s fingers fidgeted at his shoulders, his breath hitched and his eyes wide.

Victor forced himself to slowly pull his hand up to cup around Yuri's neck with painstaking slowness and started caressing his cheek with a knuckle. But then, he detected fear in Yuri’s eyes, and that made him stop. He wasn't sure what he was exactly afraid of, but he didn't want to make it worse. They had time, they didn't need to rush this quite yet.

Victor tried to pull away but Yuri didn’t allow it. He grounded his fingers into Victor’s sleeve and pressed their chests together. Victor’s hand was still over his cheek, which was turning redder and redder. Yuri smiled shakily.

Should he do it? _Could_ he do it? Damn it, he was gonna do it.

The sound of his heart was beating so loudly he couldn't concentrate. Without more dilation, he closed his eyes and crashed their mouths together. And then he felt like he was going to explode.

It was a whole new world of sensations. He hadn’t kissed in a long time, and certainly, he had never done it with _such passion_. It wasn’t only the touch of lips against lips, there was so much more. It was Victor’s hand brushing his neck, and the smell of his shampoo and the way he grunted in his mouth. And, oh God. Was his other hand now placed over his hip? He must have dropped his cigarette at some time. But then Victor pushed him, and Yuri was suddenly pressed between the wall and his strong chest and he couldn’t move. And what were his own hands doing? Was he supposed to do something with them? He moved slowly and threaded his fingers in his blond hair and tugged, bringing him closer. And he might have liked that because he broke the kiss for a moment and _moaned_. Everything felt so intimate and electrifying, their lips moving in perfect sync and the comfortable heat emanating from them, and the world slowly disappearing around them, along with all of their worries and troubles and problems. And it was _so_ good.

Yuri forgot for a moment about Vicchan, and his job and his debts. Victor stopped thinking about his past and what he had lost. They were focused on the present, and nothing else mattered. Only that moment, and the kiss and never wanting to pull apart.

When Yuri broke the kiss for good, Victor almost whined.  
  
“Sorry,” Yuri said. “That was uncalled for. I overstepped.”  
  
He crouched and picked up the discarded bag with the leftovers. Victor looked at him with his brow furrowed. After what they've shared he was still flustered?  
  
“Don't apologize. It was good. Really good. I needed that.”  
  
Yuri hummed and braced the paper bag just to have something to do. “So what are we going to do now?” he whispered so low that Victor almost didn't catch it.  
  
A part of Yuri was still reluctant to believe that anything between them could ever happen. It looked like one of those things that weren’t meant to be. Victor was a creature of change, a bird meant to fly and never be chained, for if he had such extraordinary abilities, how could he possibly live an ordinary life? He had said it. He wanted a distraction to keep quiet his troubled mind, nothing more. He would grow tired of him and leave to find something else, _someone_ else. He knew that, but could he accept that? Could Yuri commit to that when his feelings were completely different? But what did he exactly feel? They barely knew each other, so how could he know if his feelings were real or just a mere infatuation of what he’d seen on TV?  
  
And Victor was still in silence. Was the former skater as troubled as he was? Or had his thoughts drifted towards something else? Yuri found that his mind was once more unreadable, clamped so tightly that not even his eyes, known windows of the soul, gave any hint. But then Victor chuckled as if something had clicked.  
  
“Get to know each other?” he proposed. “I'd like that.” He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, his mind rushing. Was he nervous? Why was he nervous? He was, as Yuri had said, a literal legend, a stud. So how could a college boy made _him_ nervous? How? What was this boy doing to him? And why did it feel so right? He couldn’t let him leave, he understood then. So he spoke on it. “I want to know everything about you. What do you like, your hobbies, and what makes you laugh and squirm and tremble. And I want to be the one to elicit every single one of those sensations. I want to be a part of your life and I want you to be a part of mine. That's what we do now.”  
  
Yuri stood still, his eyes glued to the pavement, and Victor thought he’d messed up. He had talked too much. “But we don’t need to rush it. We can go slowly, set the pace," he added after seeing Yuri's serious expression.  
  
Yuri shook his head. "It’s not that. It’s…” he trailed off. “You've been my idol for such a long time. You still are. I looked at you and you were everything I wanted to be. But life had other ideas for me and I had to walk away from that path. But today, after what you said, I know now what I have to do. I have to try. It’s the least I can do.” He bit his lip and tsked, struggling with the words. “I don't want you to feel sad. I don't want you to be afraid. So I'll do it. I'll keep you company. I'll give everything I've got to make you feel better. I'll give you everything!"

Victor smiled and a subtle shade of pink appeared on the tip of his nose. Yeah, maybe Detroit could be a good place to stay for a while.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the kudos and nice comments ( ･ᴗ･̥̥̥ )  
> Next chapter might take a little longer, but I'll try to update before Friday.


	3. Salty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where things happen ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Yuri groaned and shifted in bed. He was hurting _everywhere_. He sat up slowly and massaged his throbbing temples. His phone was charging over the nightstand and he tugged softly to unplug it. He unlocked it to check the time.

6.23 AM

He didn’t want to get up, not yet. He lay against the mattress again, pulling softly at the duvet and wrapping himself in a cocoon. He felt so snug that he just wanted to lie there for as long as he could.

Getting up meant another day of going to classes and studying and trying to find a new job, and he wasn’t ready for that. He treasured the moment, savoring every second, with the sun breaking through the curtains and warming the room, and the soothing silence only broken by the low chirping of birds.

He knew his little moment of peace was about to be destroyed when he heard the soft sound of slippers over the carpet.

Clip-clop, clip-clop.

The footsteps stopped quickly, only to be replaced by the ugly squeak of what he identified as the cupboard door. That hinge had been a nuisance since he could remember. Then, the soft hum of the coffee machine started. He frowned. Not yet, please, he begged. _Just another five minutes_.

He must have dozed off somehow, because the next thing he felt was the sweet smell of cinnamon and apples travelling all the way from the kitchen to his room, and then reaching his nostrils.

“Yuri!” He felt the duvet being pulled and the mattress sank as Phichit plopped by his side. “It’s almost seven, come on.”

“’m tired,” Yuri groaned, face still buried in his pillow.

“I made coffee,” he teased. “And pancakes.”

Yuri rolled over, keeping his eyes closed. “Don’t wanna.”

“Yuri,” he said, this time more seriously. “You have to get up or we’re gonna be late.” Not getting an answer, he poked Yuri’s nose and his roommate sneezed. Phichit laughed softly. “Come on.”

He wrapped an arm around Yuri’s waist and pulled. Yuri groaned and pressed his face against Phichit’s chest. “Geddoff,” he mumbled.

“Okay,” Phichit said suddenly. “You asked for it.” He knelt over the bed and finished tossing the duvet aside. He scooted back and then turned around, placing one knee on either side of Yuri’s legs and facing his feet. He tugged at one of his socks, grabbing his ankle. Then he leaned forward and ran a finger over the sole. Yuri writhed.

“S-stop!” he complained.

“Not until you get up,” Phichit replied, unaffected by Yuri’s gasps. He continued tickling his foot until Yuri bent his legs, pressing his soles against the mattress and leaving them out of reach.

“You win. Fuck,” Yuri said. “Let me go. And give me my sock back.”

Phichit laughed and climbed off the bed, tossing the sock for Yuri to catch it mid air.

“There. And next time I won’t be so gentle,” he joked. Yuri yawned and stretched, stroking his hair back. After groaning some more, he reluctantly got up and joined Phichit in the kitchen.

They ate the pancakes quietly, enjoying each other’s company, with the low hum of the radio on the back.

“These are good,” Yuri said then, his mouth full of apples and syrup. “You’re amazing, Phichit.”

Phichit smiled but said nothing. “When’s your next exam?” he asked.

“On Thursday. Both Histology and Philo, my mind is a mess right now.”

“Yuck. I’ve got Commercial Law tomorrow and Legal Skills on Wednesday. Stress is killing me.”

“I feel you. Sometimes I just want to drop everything and go back home, but what’s the point?”

Phichit hummed a reply and took a sip of his coffee. “It will be worth it in the end.”

  


* * *

  
Wednesday arrived. The mass of people filled the bus, moving as a whole. The seats and windows shook with every small bump in the ragged pavement, jostling the passengers back and forth. The air conditioning pumped warm and foul air through a clogged filter that whistled due to the extreme pressure. It smelled slightly like exhaust gas.

As the world slid by the window, there were small movements from amongst the passengers. Someone shifted in their seat, and there was a little cough and a mild 'bless you'. A man in a suit was arguing on his phone, the conversation heating up. His voice was menacing and unpleasant, and Yuri wondered whether the man hadn’t realized he was screaming or he simply didn’t care. He got off in the next stop, and Yuri looked at him as he crossed the street, his face red and strained. He looked about to cry, too, and Yuri thought that sometimes feelings were incomprehensible. The line between anger and sadness or despair had always been so thin that it was rather usual to mess up the emotions.

With a sigh, Yuri held his bag tightly against his chest. It was heavy with books and he wished he could get a seat. Phichit stood by his side, looking through the window calmly. Yuri knew better than to disturb him, as he was probably mentally rehearsing for his exam. He tried to do the same, but he couldn’t concentrate.

The brakes squeaked and everyone lurched forward as the bus came to a stop. Outside, a woman dropped her cigarette, smothered it with her foot, and hopped in with some difficulty. She was holding the hand of a kid no older than five years. The doors closed with a gasp of air and the bus sped up, repeating its eternal pattern of stops and gos.

The woman with the little kid tugged at this hand with more strength than necessary and urged him to move. He didn’t complain and walked through the people, elbowing some of them, trying to find a better place near the doors. The moment Yuri placed his eyes on the kid, he knew he meant trouble.

Loud and obnoxious, not even five minutes had passed when the boy started throwing a tantrum. His mother never stopped looking at her phone and chewing on her Nicorette while his son kicked and screamed.

Yuri gritted his teeth in annoyance. It was way too early for that. _‘Shut up! My gosh, do you have to be so loud?’_ was all he could think of.

Exam season, he sighed. Hopping on a bus while sleep deprived squeezed by a sea of people, travelling to college, paying attention to classes, then coming back home to study, all in an eternal loop. A routine sprinkled of good moments to make it bearable.

He couldn’t wait for it to be over, so he could finally go back to his quiet normal life. He was and irritably and angry, he knew. It probably had something to do with the fact that he had been studying fourteen hours a day for the past week, drinking more coffee than recommendable and eating junk food. Or maybe because he couldn’t find a job. Or maybe because he missed Victor and he hadn’t seen him since Dan & Vi’s, which felt like years ago.

By the time the bus ride ended, he was grumpy and distant. They walked in silence the last blocks that separated them from the campus. He waved Phichit goodbye and wished him good luck on his exam, then they parted and aimed towards their classes.

His classroom was full, and he struggled to find a seat. He caught a glimpse of Georgi Popovich sitting in the third row. His eyes were swollen and he was slouching like a beaten dog. Yuri had heard that his girlfriend had dumped him and she was apparently dating another guy now. Poor Georgi. He walked by his side and smiled lightly, but his classmate didn’t reciprocate. It would take him a long time to heal properly and even then, he will still be scarred.

It struck him how much damage people could inflict to their loved ones, how much power to hurt was given when love started to grow. He wondered if he was ready to go through that for Victor, and for the umpteenth time he was unable to find the answer. Maybe that’s why he hadn’t called him yet. He had been to impulsive back then and now he was regretting his outburst. He barely knew the man, what had he been thinking? And the kiss, well, it had been good. Maybe _too good_. But still not enough to commit to a stranger.

He tried to pay attention to the class just to avoid thinking about Victor. He succeeded for about thirty minutes, when he realized he had been doodling his face at the bottom of the page. He crossed it out and sighed.

He scribbled down something about evaluating overall effectiveness of a direct marketing campaign via return-on-investment analysis that made no sense at all and dropped his pen.

He couldn’t help but keep falling asleep only to wake up with a jerk. He struggled against it with all his will before giving up, taking out his phone.

His fingers lingered over the recently added contact. If he texted him, then Victor would have his number and the responsibility to reply. He tipped quickly:

[Hi! I’m Yuri. Hope I’m not waking you up? :/ ]

The answer came a couple of minutes later.

**[Hi, Yuri. I’m glad you decided to text me. Don’t worry, I woke up early this morning.]**

Three dots appeared next to Victor’s profile pic while he kept typing, so Yuri waited. The dots disappeared and reappeared as he hesitated. After some moments, another message popped up.

**[Why did it take you so long?]**

Yuri read it in his mind with Victor’s low and vibrant voice, and flushed with guilt at his question.

[Sorry, I’ve been busy this week. Studying for exams, applying for new jobs...]

**[How did that go?]**

[Honestly? Not very well ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯]

**[Why’s that?]**

[No one wants to take a 19 year-old student who couldn’t even keep a job as a waiter]

**[That’s awful.]**

**[What are you doing now?]**

[Bored to death in marketing class]

**[And on your phone?? How undisciplined…]**

**[And tonight?]**

_Eager, aren’t we?_ Yuri thought.

[Study. I’ve got two exams tomorrow]

**[That’s a shame. I was going to suggest we picked up some thai?]**

[That sounds great. But I really shouldn’t, sorry :/]

**[Maybe next time.]**

Yuri put his phone back inside his pocket and raised his head. The tutor was looking at him, so he faked interest while trying to stop his accelerated heart.

When the class finished, he texted Phichit and his friend replied he was already at the apartment. Yuri stopped at the market to buy some groceries on the way back home with the little money he had left.

He finally came home to find it in silence, with all the lights turned off. After leaving the groceries in the kitchen, he entered quietly in Phichit’s room and was surprised to find the boy slumped over the bed, fully asleep. His hair was a mess and he was drooling. Yuri noticed he was shivering, so he pulled the duvet over his shoulders and tucked him tightly. Phichit mumbled something incomprehensible and shifted. He deserved a good night of sleep after all the effort he’d been making lately.

Yuri went back to the kitchen and brewed another jug of coffee, mentally preparing himself for his last hours of study before the exams. He was sure he was going to pass Histology, it was his favorite class. But Philosophy was a different story. He liked it, but he wasn’t sure if he fully understood what it was all about. There was some decent and interesting content out there, but a lot of it sounded almost delirious. Sure, Kant had several valid points, but sometimes he felt he was torturing himself over scriptures written a couple of thousand years ago, no longer relevant to the modern society.

He was writing down a recap of the most important statements of the Socratic philosophy when he remembered something their tutor had said in class. It had been back in the 400 BC, or before, he couldn’t remember exactly the date. There was this guy named Alcibiades, who was apparently very handsome but famous for his wild behavior. The tutor had told them that Socrates had taken Alcibiades as a student because he believed he could change him from his vain ways. Surprisingly, they had fallen in love, Socrates seduced by Alcibiades’ looks, and the younger boy attracted to his master by his intellect and courage. They saved each other’s lives during battles, and Socrates even wrote about him in his famous dialogues, which Yuri thought was totally romantic. Their relationship grew stronger and stronger, but then… life tore them apart.

When Yuri realized he had stopped studying at least one hour before, and that he was looking for (and actually finding!) Alcibiades x Socrates stories, he cursed himself. His brain was fried, there was no denying. He couldn’t take any more information.

He slipped over the couch until he was lying down, and grabbed his phone.

[Is the offer still open?]

  


* * *

  
Victor drove carefully, a cigarette hanging from his lips and the window fully open. The cold wind disheveled his hair and made him shiver, but he wasn’t going to let his car fill up with smoke. He stopped by the Thai restaurant and pulled over.

At the counter was an old dark-skinned woman, not the kind you pity with their old bones and feeble limbs, but the kind who could still run an army kitchen given half a chance. She stood quite tall and slim, her lips cherry red and her hair in a tight bun. The lighting was soft and the atmosphere calming, and Victor felt he really liked that place.

He read quickly the menu and ordered a little bit of everything. He waited for some minutes and then the woman gave him three plastic bags full of boxes and warm food.

“Enjoy your meal.”

Victor thanked her and returned to his car, the soft smell of chicken already spreading around.

When he arrived to Yuri’s apartment, he found him already waiting by the door.

“Hey,” Victor said. Yuri approached the car and smiled. His nose was tinted pink, but it could have been because of the cold weather.

“Hey,” Yuri replied. “My roommate is sleeping and the doorbell would have awoken him,” he explained.

“That’s okay,” he smiled.

“We’ll have to keep it down.”

“I can work with that.”

“So…” Yuri hesitated, seeing that Victor wasn’t moving. “Do you want to come in?”

  


* * *

  
Yuri grabbed two dishes and forks, cursing the squeaky hinge. When he came back to the living room, he found Victor looking through the window, his breath clouding the glass. He was standing almost in the same spot, still holding the plastic bags. Yuri apologized and hurried to pick up his mess of sheets and pens from the coffee table.

“Here, you can leave them here.”

They sat on the couch and started opening the boxes. Everything smelled so good that Yuri almost started drooling. There was an awkward silence while they kept unpacking the food and then Yuri realized he hadn’t brought any glasses.

He came back with two ceramic mugs and a bottle of apple juice.

“Sorry, we only drink this or water.”

He noticed that Victor was strangely quiet, and figured out that he was probably uncomfortable. They started eating, only talking about small things, lowering their voices to a whisper. Victor asked him about his major and what he wanted to do after graduating.

“I’m not sure yet, but I’ll probably go back home, to Hasetsu.”

“Do you miss it?”

“Every day. I was born there, I grew up there and I had lots of first experiences there. I left everything back when I decided to come here. But it’s my home, and it will always be.”

Victor smiled sadly. He knew the feeling, he missed his home too.

“But I mostly miss my family,” he added then, through a mouthful of rice. “Even my sister. Gosh, she was annoying, but now I miss her so much.”

Victor nodded and Yuri lowered his head. He was afraid of asking him about his personal life and overstepping their recently built trust. But he hated that their conversation was turning unidirectional, so he tried to play safe.

“What about you?” he whispered, and he felt Victor instantly tensing by his side. “I know you don’t like to share, but how was your day? What did you do? I don’t know, tell me something. Anything.”

“Uhm, I didn’t do much today. I woke up at 7 a.m., ate a bagel I’d bought yesterday, which, if I’m being honest, was a little dry. Then I watched a movie, but it wasn’t good so I got out for a while to walk my dog. That’s when you texted me.”

“You still have your dog?”

Victor nodded and Yuri sighed as the conversation died again. Victor had always seemed so confident and talkative, but now he had a guy sitting by his side that only communicated through monosyllables.

“Okay, I have an idea,” he said, taking out his phone. “We could play the game of questions. It’s just a bunch of silly questions that seem ridiculous but they can actually tell a lot about a person.”

Victor sipped on his juice and nodded yet another time.

“Alright. Question number one: favorite color?” he read.

“Orange,” Victor replied immediately.

“What, really? Any reason?” Yuri asked.

“It’s a happy color.”

“Okay? Well, mine is navy,” he mumbled. “That was a boring question,” he added, scrolling down. He blushed and purposefully ignored the one that said ‘Would you rather kiss your celeb crush or the hottest person you know?’ and kept looking for a more suitable option. “Okay, this one’s more interesting. If you could only eat one thing for the rest of your life, what would it be?”

“Your pork cutlet bowl, no doubt.”

“It’s not _mine_. I don’t cook it. Never made one, actually.”

“There’s a first time for everything. What about you?”

Yuri blushed and grunted. “I pass. Next: if you had-”

“What do you mean ‘you pass’?” Victor interrupted. “You can’t _pass_ the question, it’s against the rules!”

“What rules? There are no rules. It’s just a silly game.”

“Give me that thing,” he said snatching the phone from Yuri’s hands. He tapped on the screen and frowned. “What? You’ve been skipping the best ones!” he pouted. “What about number 14: would you star in a hit movie if you had to do a nude scene? I say obviously. What about you?”

“No!” he screeched.

“Why not? Are you body shy?”

“Next one, pleaseee.”

“Would you rather be always jealous or be always mad?”

“Both of them are awful, but I guess it’s better to be jealous than mad.”

“I agree. Next: would you ever go to a nude beach?”

“I feel like we’ve already been there. Pass.”

“How would you describe yourself in 3 words?”

Yuri left his fork and hummed. “That’s hard. Perseverant, for sure. But also insecure. And positive. Does it make any sense?”

Victor nodded. “Okay, now how would you describe me in 3 words?”

Yuri rested his elbows on his knees and leaned his head on his hands. _Beautiful, graceful, perfect_ , he thought. But those were only shallow features. “Reliable, mature and …melancholic?”

“Thank you?” He glanced at Yuri’s phone. “What did you first think of me?”

“That you were completely different from what I expected.”

“What were you expecting?”

“Some arrogant guy carried away by his fame who wouldn’t even talk to someone like me. But you surprised me. You’re more human, and less… god.”

“Fair enough. What would be your ideal date?”

“Does it say that?” Yuri frowned, trying to get back his phone, but Victor held it out of reach.

“Just answer. You can’t pass this one.”

“I don’t know. Something simple, I guess. No candles or fancy restaurants. Just a nice dinner at home and maybe a movie.”

“Like this?” Victor asked in a whisper.

“Like what?”

“What we are doing now.”

Yuri blushed and started coughing. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

“How did you get so attractive?” Victor added, turning slightly, his leg brushing against Yuri’s.

“W-what?”

“When you blush. You’re adorable. You know that?”

Yuri blinked as Victor lowered his voice more and more.

“You awaken my curiosity.” His fingers trailed over the sensitive skin of Yuri’s neck and he shuddered. “You make me feel things I haven’t felt in ages.”

Yuri gasped. “I thought you would make a funny game, but now I see you’re so much more than that. I’ve been looking for you, Yuri.”

“M-me?” Yuri managed to pant.

“Only you.”

Yuri could feel through clouded senses a hand pressed against his chest, pushing him against the couch. He let the hand drag him and he was suddenly lying on his back, panting heavily. Victor took the bowl of coconut rice from his hand and placed it over the coffee table. Yuri gathered some clarity and thought about his exams, and how he really shouldn’t be doing that, but the moment passed when he noticed Victor’s hot breath against his jaw. He writhed as Victor straddled him, one hand at each side of his head, his knees caging his torso.

He leaned forward and kissed him briefly. Yuri inhaled deeply the fresh and arousing perfume emanating from Victor, as well as a subtle smell of cigarettes and alcohol. Had he been drinking before their meeting?

He tried to rinse onto his elbows, but Victor pushed his shoulders back down, kissed him and then moved slowly downward and downward. He pressed feathery kisses all over his pulse, his hand finding his chest and grabbing a fistful of Yuri’s sweater.

Yuri felt a rush of blood throbbing to his groin and he couldn’t stifle the soft moan that escaped his lips. It felt _so_ good. He shifted his hips trying to get some friction but then, Victor stopped moving, and cruelly, so cruelly, the pleasure ended. He whimpered at the loss and parted his lips.

“Oh,” Victor said and Yuri almost died of embarrassment. He had popped a boner only by kissing, like some horny teenager.

But then, Victor resumed kissing him, softly grinding his hips and Yuri felt a hard heat against his stomach. Oh God. He closed his eyes and his back arched against his will. The hand on Yuri’s chest snaked under his shirt, slowly tracing along the dips between each of his ribs, and then it travelled further down stopping at his hip.

Yuri couldn’t suppress the sounds he was making even if he’d wanted to. Victor kissed him harder, and he tasted salt on his lips, probably from the soy sauce. His arms that had been lying uselessly by his side suddenly jolted and wrapped around his neck, tugging him closer.

The hand on his hip started moving down again, only to stop _there_. Yuri gasped and his eyes snapped open.

“Is that alright?” Victor asked, worried by his sudden reaction. Yuri thought he was going to die of arousal, so he only nodded, unable to speak.

Victor continued to palm his oh so sensitive spot, and Yuri rocked his hips, no longer caring about how embarrassed he was.

“Oh God,” he cried. “Oh…”

Victor started working on the fly of Yuri’s trousers, blindly trying to drag the zipper down.

“V-Victor...”

“What the hell?” The light of the hallway flicked on and Phichit appeared on the doorway. “What the-?”

Snapping out of his state of arousal, Yuri sat straight and Victor covered his face with his hands.

Phichit blinked slowly and his eyes widened as he realized what had been happening seconds before. “Oh shit. I’m so sorry. I thought that-. Oh shit. I’ll be in my room,” he added, his cheeks darkening. “You can… go on.”

He quickly left the room, visibly flustered and murmuring apologies. Victor looked at Yuri and there was a moment of silence before they started laughing.

“Guess you were being too loud,” he teased.

“Not exactly my fault.”

They laughed again and rested their backs against the couch, knowing that the moment had been broken. So they lay silent, their limbs intertwined, their faces mere inches apart.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phichit cockblocker™.  
> Also, I don’t know how does the American college system work, or when do they schedule finals, but for me it’s NOW. So I wrote this chapter the way I feel: afraid and tired af.  
> I finished writing this at 3am, so I apologise for any typo.


	4. Acid

_Sharp blades. Fear. Blood._  
  
_The crowd went silent. Then the whispers started._  
  
_But when the music finally stopped, the damage had been done._

 

Yuri scrunched up his nose when he felt the wetness on his face, a thin stream slowly trickling down his cheek. It was barely noticeable, but it tickled and its presence was becoming annoying. Still half asleep, he ran his tongue over his lips trying to get rid of it. And that’s when he tasted the salt.  
  
He frowned in confusion, his mind too foggy to make any sense of it. He grunted and wriggled his ass, scooting back to flush his body with the warm softness placed behind him. In the back of his mind, he could sense that something wasn’t right, but he felt so cozy and relaxed he just couldn’t bring himself to care.  
  
However, much to his discomfort, the wetness wouldn’t go away. It kept going and going and soon he started to feel it running down his neck. What the hell?  
  
He heard a low strained whine ghosting against his nape and suddenly everything made sense. Tears. But they weren't his. His eyes snapped open.  
  
Victor was lying behind him on the couch, his chest pressed against Yuri’s back. He had an arm wrapped around his waist, his nose buried in the soft dark hair. And he was sobbing, still deep asleep. It looked as if he were drowning, his mouth open and gasping for air. He unconsciously shifted when he felt Yuri move, gripping the Japanese's bicep with such strength it almost hurt.  
  
"Victor," Yuri whispered, trying to free his arm. "Victor, wake up."  
  
Victor frowned in his sleep, his expression showing nothing but pain. He mumbled something incomprehensible, visibly agitated.  
  
All of a sudden, he shuddered and choked, loosening up his grip and returning his hand to Yuri’s waist. He let out an especially loud sob and for a moment, Yuri thought that would wake him up, but it didn’t.  
  
“I’m sorry,” he heard Victor cried out to someone that wasn’t there. “I’m so sorry.”  
  
Yuri worried his lower lip between his teeth. He felt as if he were snooping, listening to something he wasn’t supposed to. He placed his hand over Victor’s and slowly pulled it away, turning around to face him.  
  
With their noses mere inches apart, Yuri could clearly see the tears damping Victor’s thick eyelashes, his sobs now quieter and more controlled. He flattened his hands over the Russian’s heart, taken aback by how rapidly it beat.  
  
“No,” he mumbled then. “I didn’t… It wasn’t my…No… I’m sorry!” he wailed.  
  
Yuri’s breath hitched at Victor’s words and his hands traveled up his chest to his shoulders. He shook him lightly but with increasing force until Victor finally opened his eyes, breathing desperately like a newborn. He looked scared, paler than ever. He was also disoriented, and his eyes wandered around the room until they fell over Yuri and settled.  
  
"Hey, it was just a nightmare. It's okay," Yuri assured him with a sad smile. He cupped his cheeks running a hesitant thumb over them to wipe Victor’s tears.  
  
The man stared at him in silence and then nodded. _But if it’s only a dream, why is it still real after I wake up?_  
  
Yuri disentangled himself from Victor to look at him properly. He studied his face, the crease in his brow, the trembling lips, the way his eyes were still watery and surrounded by dark shadows.  
  
His heart wrenched. Once more, he placed a hand over Victor's chest to felt his trepid beating and the way his thorax heaved unevenly with every gulp of air.  
  
"It's okay now," Yuri lied. He could only guess, but he had a pretty good idea of what had been Victor dreaming about. And it wasn't okay at all.  
  
He shifted a little trying not to fall off the couch and started rubbing soothing circles over his back.  
  
With painfully slowness, Victor's breathing settled into a more comfortable pace and the sobs stopped. He was still pale and his eyes were unfocused, but he seemed calmer.  
  
Yuri got up and Victor stretched out a hand to stop him.  
  
"I'll bring you a glass of water," Yuri explained. Victor’s fingertips lingering over his wrist were almost a plea. "I'll be right back," he assured.  
  
Stumbling across the living room, he rubbed his tired eyes and yawned. He looked at the clock on the wall and saw it was half past seven. He had overslept.  
  
Now completely alert, he remembered with a twist of his gut the exams scheduled for the morning. He was supposed to be already on his way. He cursed himself and aimed towards the kitchen. He'd have to deal with that later. There was no way in hell he was leaving Victor alone in his actual state.  
  
After grabbing a glass, he approached the sink and noticed a dirty cup of coffee over the counter. He realized with surprise that Phichit had already had breakfast and left. Why on Earth hadn't he woke him up? Puzzled, he filled the glass and quickly came back to Victor. The man drank clumsily, streams of water running down his chin and darkening his dress shirt.  
  
Once he'd drink enough, he tried to place the glass over the coffee table but his hands were shaking so much he almost dropped it.  
  
"Sorry, I made a mess," he said, his voice hoarse and his eyes fixed on the puddle of water that was already dampening an empty cardboard box from their Thai dinner.  
  
Yuri shook his head and dried it with a paper napkin. "Don't worry, it's just water."  
  
He walked towards the window and pulled the curtains open, letting the light in. Detroit seemed strangely calm. Snow had fallen over the night, and the roofs he could see were covered on white. The first snowfall of the season, he smiled sadly. The sky was gray and clouded, but the sun still shone. No birds chirping this time, though.  
  
He paced around, finally sitting on the arm of the couch to look through the window. But he wasn’t really paying attention, his eyes blurry, his mind swirling with what he had heard. He realized then that he wasn’t wearing his glasses, which were probably lost in the mess of the living room.  
  
He felt Victor shifting by his side, so he spoke. "You weren't breathing,” he started. “You…you really scared me. I didn't know what to do. Do you…? Does this happen frequently?" he asked, still avoiding his eyes.  
  
Victor shook his head. "Only when I forget to take my pills," he muttered.  
  
"What pills?" Yuri frowned.  
  
"Sleeping pills,” he said reluctantly, suddenly more interested in the back of his hands. “The only way I can rest without dreaming. It makes things easier."  
  
"So you're seeing a therapist about this," he commented, somewhat relieved. He knew sleeping pills could be dangerous if taken without any guidance and to him, a therapist looked like the most viable option to prescribe them. However, he was surprised by Victor's bitter reply.  
  
"No, I'm not. I don't need a therapist."  
  
Yuri faked a smile. He was no one to pry on Victor’s life, but the man had obvious guilt issues about his past. "They can help a lot," he said as a matter of fact.  
  
"I said I don't need a damn therapist!" Victor hissed through clenched teeth. "I'm not insane. In fact, my mind's never been clearer.”  
  
_And that's what so fucking terrifying._  
  
He stood up violently, pressing his hands against his temples. “I think I should leave.”  
  
Yuri jumped to his feet immediately and grabbed Victor by his arm. “You can’t leave. Not in this state. And certainly not until you’ve calmed down. I don’t care, I’ll skip my exams, whatever.”  
  
Victor listened to him with a blank expression and then looked at his wrist watch. He tsked. “Shit, I forgot about your exam. It’s almost eight.” He stroked his hair back. “Fuck.”  
  
He tugged his arm free and shook his head. “Hurry up, I drive you.”  
  
“No, I told you I-“  
  
“Could you just please hurry the fuck up?” he shouted.  
  
Yuri let out a chocked gasp and stepped back. He had never seen Victor so distraught. He nodded and locked himself in the bathroom. Leaning over the sink, he slowly turned the tap and splashed his burning cheeks with cold water. He looked at his reflection in the mirror and what he saw wasn’t nice. His eyes were bloodshot and tired. He combed his hair with his fingers, specially trying to control his bangs, which were curling in a way they shouldn’t.  
  
He had messed up. He had overstepped his boundaries and now Victor was mad at him. He swallowed the lump in his throat and brushed his teeth, fighting back waves of nausea.  
  
When he left the bathroom, Victor asked him with a jerk of his head if he could use it too, and Yuri nodded.  
  
He sprinted towards his bedroom and rummaged through discarded clothes trying to find a clean t-shirt. When he pulled his sweats down, he noticed a little dried spot in front of his boxer briefs, an obvious aftermath of their previous (and frustrated) night. He groaned, remembering how good it had felt, how hot… how close he had been to orgasm, and yet... Damn Phichit. He changed his underwear, yanking on some jeans and a hoodie, while still thinking about their intimate encounter. Had Victor felt as good as him? He had been clearly aroused, as Yuri had been able to feel his hardness. But still… With flushed cheeks, he grabbed his bag and his pencil case, counting to ten to calm himself.  
  
When he exited his room, Victor looked calmer, already putting on is coat and waiting for him by the door. He winked at him and a weird sound escaped Yuri’s throat.  
  
“Wait, I forgot my notes,” he remembered then, running back into his room.  
  
Victor waited patiently, jolting when he heard a loud thump and the sound of pages being flipped. “I don’t find them. Can you see them there? I think I clipped them,” asked Yuri, his voice muffled.  
  
Victor looked around and found a bunch of papers over the dining table. “Yeah. I found something. _Verificationism_ ,” he read. “The meaning of a sentence consists in its empirical implications.”  
  
“No, that’s not it. I think those are Phichit’s,” Yuri grunted.  
  
Victor took another page. “What about ‘two elements that every corporation should address’? It says something about ensuring a policy of value chain management and reducing costs…” he flipped the page. “Therefore allowing the business to maintain its profitability levels.”  
  
“No, that’s marketing. Wait, I think I found them.”  
  
Victor took another page from the heap and read the title. He scanned the rest of the text lazily but then his eyes fell over something at the bottom of the page. _Oh._  
  
His face was drawn exquisitely with blue ink from some cheap ballpoint pen. It was crossed out with angry strokes, but his features were still recognizable.  
  
He admired in silence the delicacy of the sketch, unfinished and yet unbelievable realistic. His fingers traced his own jaw, approving the way Yuri had represented his strong bone structure. His hair was different, but it didn’t look bad. It was longer on the left side, a flowing fringe covering his eye. He smiled. Yeah, it didn’t look bad at all, he could get used to that.  
  
He heard the hinge of Yuri’s bedroom door squeal, and he quickly returned the page to its place, still awestruck when the young man appeared by his side.  
  
“Okay, I’m ready,” Yuri said, wrapping a scarf around his mouth and quickly fetching his glasses before opening the door.  
  


* * *

  
The ride was short and awkward. Victor said Yuri shouldn’t take an exam with his stomach empty, no matter how late he was arriving, so they stopped at the local McDonald’s and ordered two McCoffees and bagels to eat on the way. Yuri drank the coffee quickly, but had some troubles swallowing the enormous pastry. He was still feeling nauseous.  
  
They barely talked at all, and Yuri was thankful for that because he was sure he couldn’t have handled a conversation with his pre-exam jitters. He took out his phone and texted Phichit. He didn’t reply, but WhatsApp, always sneaky, told Yuri that his friend was online. Weird.  
  
A little discouraged by Phichit’s silence, he tried to revise on last time, but the movement of the car lulled him and he couldn’t concentrate. He spent the rest of the ride pouting and scrolling through memes.  
  
Victor pulled over at Livernois Ave and McNichols, without taking his eyes off the road. He was wearing the sunglasses again, and Yuri felt him more distant than ever, unreadable and cold. He coughed and grabbed his bag.  
  
“Uhm, I’ll guess I’ll see you later?”  
  
Victor nodded, and Yuri opened the door.  
  
“Wait,” Victor said, and Yuri stopped, one leg already out of the car. “Uh… good luck.” He turned a little and grabbed Yuri by his coat, tugging him closer. He pressed his lips softly against Yuri’s in a chaste kiss, and pulled back. “Good luck.”  
  
Yuri smiled, melting on the inside, and waved him goodbye. Victor waited until the boy disappeared inside the block and turned on the engine.  
  
Nothing had changed when he came back to his house, except the two bills lying over his doormat. He picked them swiftly and opened the door. Maccachin greeted him with enthusiastic jumps and barks, licking his fingers and taking away the last tracks of powdered sugar from the bagels. Victor wiped his hands on his jeans and petted Maccachin’s head with a little smile.  
  
He dropped over the couch with his always loyal dog nestled by his side. He frantically ran a hand through his hair. He had messed up. He had messed up _so badly_. The boy cared a lot about his academic success… what if they didn’t allow him to take the exam because of his late arrival? Or worst, what if he failed the exam because he had fucked up his last night revision? He groaned.  
  
He remembered then the way he had yelled at him for merely suggesting he should see a therapist. He had overreacted. For God’s sake, he had _so_ overreacted. One day in Yuri’s life and he had already ruined it.  
  
Yuri was just too good for him.  
  
He shut his eyes tightly and pinched the bridge of his nose. A light headache was starting to appear. He’d have to make it up to him, somehow. And it had to be something big.  
  


* * *

  
The exam room was already crowded despite the fact they had selected an entire auditorium for the occasion. Yuri found a place at the front row, thanking gods and angels he hadn’t arrived that late.  
  
The professor started distributing the exam sheets and Yuri panicked. He hadn’t revised enough. In fact, he hadn’t revised at all. What if they asked him about stratified squamous epithelium or… or cardiac muscle? He had made a synoptic table about that, hadn’t he? Yes, he remembered, it was at the bottom of the third page. It started with… uh. He had forgotten. His breathing sped up and he was suddenly hyperventilating.  
  
Sooner than what he would’ve liked, a sheet appeared in front of him and he gasped. That was it, he was _so_ going to fail.  
  
Only that he didn’t.  
  
When he started reading the questions, he was surprised to see that, in fact, it was easier than he had expected, making him realize that he was actually well prepared.  
  
He finished quickly and even had time to correct some mistakes before finally leaving his answers over the professor’s desk.  
  
Feeling ten times lighter, he crossed the doors of the auditorium. Only one more, and then he would be done. Just one more.  
  
He yawned, stretching his arms over his head and aimed towards the coffee shop in the campus. He had still two hours before the Philosophy exam, and he needed to kill the time somehow.  
  
The coffee shop was mostly empty, only a few girls laughing in a corner and a Mexican guy he recognized from Organic Chemistry. He acknowledged him with a jerk of his head and the guy smiled back.  
  
He found a nice table next to the window and sat down. He felt like ordering a Russian Coffee, but the girl said they didn’t have that, so he settled for an espresso. Sipping slowly, he took out his Philosophy notes and placed them on the table. He looked out of the window, watching a bunch of students walk by with cheerfulness. He realized then how much he loved the campus, a sense of belonging warming his heart.  
  
After another long sip, he fetched his phone from his pocket and checked his messages. Phichit had yet to reply, but he had already seen the text two hours before. Yuri felt worry crept over his skin. That wasn’t normal. Maybe he was embarrassed after what had happened the previous night? He had to tell his friend that everything was okay, that he wasn’t angry or anything, that it was his own fault for being so careless. That he missed him.  
  


* * *

  
"Hey, uh… It’s me, again. Where are you? Is everything okay? I know I called already but…Uhm, I don’t know what’s going on but I’m getting worried…? I think we maybe need to talk about last night and… you know.”  
  
The line went silent as Yuri hesitated.  
  
“Uh… look, just… just call me back, okay?” _End of message. To replay this message, hit 7, to skip this message hit…_  
  
Phichit scoffed and shoved his phone deep in his pocket. His heart ached and he didn’t know why. However, that feeling was mixed with some sort of satisfaction, enjoying the fact that Yuri craved him so bad even if it wasn’t in the way he wanted.  
  
He paced slowly down the hallway with a smile on his face. It wasn’t an honest smile but it was how people knew him, so he tried to keep the façade even if he felt like crying.  
  
_“The show must go on,”_ he sang quietly. _“Inside my heart is breaking, my make-up may be flaking, but my smile still stays on.”_ He paused, trying to remember the lyrics, and then continued, though his voice now sounded strained. _“Another heartache, another failed romance… on and on…”_  
  
He whistled the rest of the song and stopped in front of the Law billboard, noticing it had already attached the results of the exams. He found his name at the top alongside a 98.7 in bold. Fuckers, he thought. He was first of his class again.  
  
But still, it wasn’t enough. He couldn’t even be happy if the thing he wanted the most was so out of reach. He recalled again the moment. That _damn moment_ that had changed everything.  
  
He remembered being half asleep when he heard the giggle. He didn’t thought much about it, assuming Yuri was watching TV or whatever. But then… then he heard a voice, and it wasn’t Yuri’s. He waited, listening intently until the sounds stopped. Or that’s what he believed.  
  
He got up, walking slowly towards the living room. He was parched, he needed something to drink. Just a sip, he told himself.  
  
He wasn’t prepared for that. He wasn’t prepared for the cruel pain that ripped his heart. He…  
  
Yuri was lying on the couch, his legs spread open while a man straddled him, shamelessly working him up, hands pressed against his crotch. Yuri was moaning as if the world were about to end, lips parted, cheeks flushed, hands threaded tightly through the man’s hair.  
  
“Oh God,” Yuri was saying. “Oh…”  
  
Phichit couldn’t bear it anymore, he needed them to stop. He needed that man to take his hands out of Yuri, to stop touching him, to get the fuck out and never come back.  
  
He interrupted them. He had to. The coward had covered his face, so he didn’t even have that. He didn’t have a face to blame, a face to hate and spit on his sleep.  
  
The morning after, he had awakened with a raging erection and the urge to leave.  
  
How could have that happened? How could have he been so wrong about Yuri? About what his friend felt? About what happened between them?  
  
Have he been fooling himself? He had always thought that they implicitly were something more than friends. They had been so close, some nights sleeping on the same bed, sharing tickles and caresses. Never going further than that, but still so far away from what a normal friendship meant.  
  
Yet he had never seen Yuri as aroused as that man seemed to make him, writhing and blushing and…  
  
A familiar heat brought him back to the present. He felt himself twitch in his pants, getting hard on the thought of Yuri’s moans alone. “Fuck,” he gasped.  
  
He looked around and stepped away from the billboard, walking awkwardly towards the restroom. He hated now the way Yuri made him feel, and still… _it felt so good._  
  
He needed to get himself off, to stop the pressure that was building in his groin. He went up the stairs, climbing two steps at a time with inordinately long strides. Almost there…  
  
A hand grabbed his wrist and he turned around to face the last person he wanted to see at that exact moment.  
  
“I was looking for you! I was worried, what the hell happened to you?” asked Yuri with a hesitant smile.  
  
“I was…” he swallowed hard, the sight of Yuri sprawled over the couch making his groin burn. “I was… busy,” he ended, poorly.  
  
“Okay,” replied Yuri, doubt painted all over his face.  
  
“I needed time,” he said suddenly, making a decision he would regret. “Time to think.” _Away from you._  
  
“Think about what?” Yuri asked.  
  
“I…” he hesitated. The moment those words left his mouth, there would be no way back. “I think that it might be better if… if I just look for another place to live in,” he deadpanned.  
  
“What? Why? Is it because of what happened last night?” Yuri exclaimed, oblivious to the effect those words had on Phichit. His friend flinched, his heart aching.  
  
“No,” he replied. “This time is about me.” And if he repeated it enough, he might end up believing it.  
  
“But what about me?” Yuri said then. “I won't be able to afford the rent on my own.”  
  
It was like a punch right in the groin. “Is that what worries you? That?”  
  
“W-well, yeah. You know I’m still struggling to find a job, and I really shouldn’t-”  
  
“It's always about you, isn't it?” Phichit interrupted him. “Your insecurities, your problems, your job,” he attacked, accentuated each word with an accusatory finger, his erection now forgotten and probably fading. “You you you. And what about me? Huh? You only think about yourself, but now this _is_ about me.”  
  
“Phichit! Calm down, I just-” Yuri cried.  
  
“No, shut up! You won’t trap me on your webs again,” he shouted, jealousy clouding his judgment so much he didn’t know what he was saying anymore. “And here I was thinking you were _so_ special. You’re fucking not.”  
  
He pressed his back against the wall and slid down until he was sitting on the floor.  
  
“FUCK,” he screamed. It hurt so much, mostly because deep inside he knew he didn’t mean any of those words and that he still cared deeply about Yuri. “You fucked me up. You ruined my life! You fucking asshole!” He didn’t care that he was screaming so loud anyone could hear him. “Who was that? Huh? I deserve to know. You owe me at least that.”  
  
“Who was who?” Yuri asked. Bile was flooding his mouth, and he could feel it burning his throat. But nothing hurt more than his friend’s words.  
  
Phichit let out a demented laugh. “Your fuck buddy, who else? Did you do it? Did you go for it? You know what? Don’t answer that, I just want his name.”  
  
Yuri lowered his eyes. “I can’t tell you. No one should know that-”  
  
“Why not?” Phichit inquired his voice one octave higher. His eyes widened as realization hit him. “Is it a professor from here? You’re fucking a teacher? Oh my God, it’s Giacometti, isn’t it? You’re fucking that stiff-necked bastard?”  
  
“No!” Yuri shouted, now matching Phichit’s voice.  
  
“Then why won’t you just tell me? Why would you keep it a secret?”  
  
“I can’t,” Yuri said simply.  
  
“Well, I call that bullshit,” Phichit hissed. He got up and sniffled loudly. “I’m done. That’s it. I’ll pick up my stuff and then I’ll leave. I’m done.”  
  
And just like that, he was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, I live for the drama™. I swear it gets better...
> 
> Also, Kenjiro Minami is introduced in the next chapters ;)


	5. Rancy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning in the end notes. Please, check them if you are susceptible to triggering.

_“It’s Giacometti, isn’t it?”_  
  
_“Is it a professor from here? You’re fucking a teacher?”_  
  
_“Oh my God, it’s Giacometti, isn’t it?”_  
  
_“It-It’s Giacometti…?_  
  
_“…that stiff-necked bastard?”_  
  
_“Giacometti…?_  
  
_“You’re fucking…?”_  
  
The words reverberated in Yuri’s ears loud and clear, and he felt like throwing up. He took off his glasses and dug the heels of his hands into his eyes, wanting the voice to stop. But it didn’t. His heart pounded and his vision began to blur, partly from the pressure, partly from hyperventilating, partly from exhaustion.  
  
He stared at the front of the class, where said professor watched the students like a hawk to make sure no one cheated on the exam. He was comfortably settled behind his desk with his legs outstretched and his back maybe a little bit too stiff. He liked to give off the impression of being particularly strict, his façade only dissolving by his unusual two-toned undercut and the rumors of a pair of hands more than eager with some of his students.  
  
He scanned the room with a stern expression, stopping at Yuri when he noticed the tenseness in his face. He squinted his cat-like eyes, subtly tilting his head as if trying to understand what was wrong. Yuri flinched and lowered his gaze to his exam, getting uncomfortable under his scrutiny. He read the questions again but his mind was blank.  
  
_1) What's the Socratic Method? Definition and examples._  
  
That was an easy one, he knew it. But he couldn’t focus, not after what had happened. He wrote down some kind of a poor answer he was sure wasn’t enough and passed to the next one.  
  
He could feel Mr. Giacometti’s eyes still fixed on him and he shifted awkwardly in his chair. Was he being suspicious? His right leg started bouncing up and down and he was forced to cross his ankles to stop the movement. His hands were sweaty and itchy, so he wiped them on his jeans to dry them off. He looked at his answer sheet taking in how many places still remained blank. His throat felt sore all of a sudden and then he realized he couldn’t do it. He needed to leave.  
  
After gathering his things, he stood up and walked towards the front of the class, leaving his exam over Mr. Giacometti’s desk. His hand was already on the doorknob when he heard the man spoke.  
  
“Mr. Katsuki,” he called. Yuri paused and turned around. “Come here.”  
  
Yuri approached the desk, still avoiding the man’s eyes.  
  
“Are you sure you don’t want to revise any of your answers?” He checked his wrist watch. “There’s still plenty of time. I’m not going until four,” he said. He was looking at the exam with his lips pursed in disappointment and perhaps concern.  
  
Yuri shook his head.  
  
“You do realize that Philosophy is a must-pass component, right? You need good grades here in order to get your science credits. And I don’t think I need to remind you what happens if you don’t get them.”  
  
He waited for an answer but Yuri remained silent. “Look, you’ve been an excellent student and I would be lying if I said this doesn’t surprise me. I mean, come on, you know the answers! We’ve seen all of this in class.”  
  
He placed the exam on the desk and folded his hands over it, his brow slightly creased. “Is everything alright?” he asked then. “If you’re not feeling good today, I understand that and I’m sure we can find a way to solve this.”  
  
He opened his messenger bag and took out his appointment book. “Okay, we’re going to do this. Come and see me in my office before the winter break and we can schedule a retake on early January.”  
  
“Thank you, sir.” Yuri let out a breath he hadn’t realized he had been holding and bowed his head lightly, an old habit he had from his education in Hasetsu.  
  
“You’re welcome,” Chris smiled. “You can go now.”  
  
He bowed another time and crossed the doors. Once outside, he ran towards the bathroom area, afraid he might not get there in time.  
  
He should have stopped him. He really should have run after him and bring him back, tried to talk some sense into him. And most of all, he should have told him that he couldn’t go, that he needed him, that he was his other half.  
  
He should have done so many things. But he didn’t.  
  
And now it was too late.  
  
The hallway was completely empty, except for him and a big trash can in front of the bathroom. He walked idly, his eyes unfocused and the lump in his throat barely allowing him to breath.  
  
He couldn’t live without Phichit. They’ve shared so many things during their months living together… he was like a brother to him! He couldn’t bear the feeling of Phichit being mad at him.  
  
But he wasn’t only mad. He was… jealous? But why? _When?_  
  
He inhaled deeply. He couldn’t do it. He had hurt him. He had hurt his best friend, the kindest purest person he had ever known.  
  
Before realizing, he was grabbing the edges of the trash can so tightly his knuckles turned white. His stomach contracted violently, and he barely had time to lean forward. He heaved again and again and suddenly, he was spraying his undigested breakfast into the plastic bag.  
  
He sank to his knees, dragging the trash can with him, and retched until only clear liquid was coming up. His throat felt sore from the gastric acid that was layering it and his mouth tasted of vomit, the foul smell filling his nostrils.  
  
He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. After his stomach stopped lurching, he was left feeling bruised inside, but also empty, as if vomiting had allowed him to let go all of his pent-up stress. His eyes were full of tears from the effort, and he blinked to get rid of them.  
  
He shivered and pressed his forehead against his knees, curling up into a tight ball. He let out a choked sob, unable to control his breathing, unable to stop shaking.  
  
His fingers were so numb that he dropped his phone while retrieving it from his back pocket. It fell with the screen facing the tiles, but the short distance to the ground saved it from shattering. He needed to talk to someone. He needed to calm down or he would end up crying.  
  
He looked through his contacts with blurry eyes, discarding the idea of calling his parents, he didn’t want to worry them. He scrolled past Emil’s number, too. They weren’t close enough, he wouldn’t understand. And Georgi was still inside the auditorium taking the exam, he wasn’t an option.  
  
He found Sala’s number. Yes, that was good. She could help him, she was a good friend. He hit ‘Call’ and pressed the phone against his ear.  
  
“Pick up… pick up…” he begged in a whisper. He let it ring one, two, five, seven times and then he was redirected to the voicemail.  
  
And that was it. He hung up.  
  
He realized then, that he had no one else to call. In the past, when he had a problem, he would call Phichit every time. And no matter how hard things were, his friend would always have the perfect words. But now that he was gone there was no one left. Because Phichit was his everything. No. Phichit had been his everything. Not anymore.  
  
But then he remembered. He did have someone.  
  


* * *

  
The shop was pretty. Small but cozy and filled with a delicious perfume. Victor walked through the aisles looking at the different plants on display, trying not to kick any of the pots or hit his head against the ones hanging from the ceiling.  
  
He found a nice vase with white carnations and leaned forward to take in the scent. They smelled like cinnamon, funny. He kept on walking and stopped in front of a bunch of purple orchids.  
  
“Are you looking for anything in particular?” the florist asked, suddenly behind him and startling him a little.  
  
He straightened and winced. “I don’t know. I want this to be special. My partner and I… Well, we… ” He hesitated, unsure of how much he could tell the old lady, but she smiled and encouraged him to go on. “We had a fight.” He rubbed the back of his neck, feeling self-conscious when she winked in complicity.  
  
“It happens all the time.” She walked to the back of the shop and looked at the different species with expert eye. “So, tell me, how bad was it? The fight.”  
  
“I wouldn’t say particularly bad, but it was our first one,” he replied with a pained expression.  
  
“Don’t worry, sweetie. I’m sure we’ll find something nice for her.”  
  
“Uh… actually… my partner is a he? I don’t know if I should call him my partner, though. We never talked about it. It’s just all too new.”  
  
The florist stopped and then nodded. “I think I have the perfect bouquet, then.”  
  
She disappeared in the back office and came back with a dozen of red tulips. “What do you think?” she said expectantly, offering him the flowers.  
  
“They are perfect indeed,” he smiled. “I’ll take them.”  
  
He followed her to the counter and she took out a ribbon roll, wrapping it around the bouquet and tying it neatly.  
  
“Do you want to write him a card, too?” she asked, handing him a small piece of textured paper.  
  
“Okay.” He grabbed the paper and a pen from the counter, and stopped. He didn’t know what to write. Was it okay to write and apologize? Something like ‘We’ve just met and I’m feeling things I never felt before, sorry I freaked out’ or ‘Sorry I was rude, I’m just not a morning person’? Maybe something shorter, along the lines ‘I’m a jerk, but working on it’.  
  
“Do you know what red tulips mean?” she said then, causing him to lose his train of thought. He shook his head.  
  
“Well, the color red in flowers is usually associated with passion, isn’t it?” she started. “But red tulips mean something more. Besides being a symbol of eternal, perfect and true love, there’s a story upon them, too. A Persian tragedy of a young man who never had the courage to confess his love to his other half until it was too late. There are many versions of this story, but something the all had in common is that in the end, he died true to his feelings, red tulips blossoming all around him as he cried out to the world how big his love had been. Ever since then, the red tulips became a symbol for declaration of love.”  
  
Silence fell around them while Victor pondered over her story thoroughly. “Are you suggesting that I should tell him that I…?”  
  
He frowned and stared in anger at the paper. Words weren’t his strength- he far preferred actions. Why was it _so_ hard?  
  
He thought about what Yuri meant to him and what he wanted to tell him. An idea assaulted his mind and he wrote it down quickly, trying to keep his handwriting neat and clean. He signed the card and gave it to the florist, who taped it to the bouquet.  
  
“How much is it? I’m paying in cash.”  
  
He took out his wallet and felt his phone vibrating in his pocket. Only one person could be calling him.  
  
He looked at the florist in panic. “I think it’s him. What should I do?”  
  
The florist beamed. “Come on, pick up! Don’t make him wait!”  
  
“Okay. Okay.” He inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly, trying to relax. He coughed to clear his voice, and then picked up.  
  
“Yuri?” he said hesitantly. He was preparing himself to be verbally attacked by a royally-pissed Yuri. Although, being honest, he couldn’t picture his little katsudon yelling to anybody.  
  
_“Victor,”_ the younger one whispered to the phone.  
  
His voice sounded weird, strained and hoarse as if he had been crying or screaming. Victor frowned.  
  
“What’s wrong? Are you okay?”  
  
_“No,”_ he said. _“I’m on campus. Could you… could you come and pick me up?”_  
  
“What happened?”  
  
_“I need you. Please?”_  
  
“I’m on my way.”  
  
He hung up and looked at the florist with a worried expression. “I think something happened to him.”  
  
The old lady shoved the flowers against his chest. “Hurry up, then!”  
  


* * *

  
Phichit slammed the door of their apartment and stormed inside his bedroom. He opened his closet and started tossing his clothes to the floor, as if possessed. Once he had found his old suitcase, he ripped it open almost breaking the slide of the zipper.  
  
He breathed noisily and crouched, fiercely pilling shirts and trousers inside the suitcase. He threw them in, whether folded or not. He couldn’t wait to leave. He didn’t even have another place to stay, but anywhere was better than there. A lonely tear rolled down his cheek and he wiped it with anger. He stood up again and opened the drawers, stuffing his suitcase with everything he could fit in. He wasn’t going to stop now.  
  
He exited his room and went to the bathroom, snatching his toothbrush, a comb and other things he thought he might need. He checked then inside the washing machine, making sure he wasn’t forgetting anything important and was surprised to find a blue t-shirt with a whale printed on it. He frowned. They’d bought those matching shirts at Sea Parks, when they’d visited the place in August. He had worn it so many times, that the logo was blurry and the hem frayed. In the end, he had decided to wear it only at home and it had become one of his favorite pajamas.  
  
He figured that Yuri would still have his, and the urge to sneak inside his room and find it suddenly attacked him. He couldn’t stop himself, and once he was there he honestly considered the idea of smashing the collection of snow globes in display over Yuri’s desk. Like, seriously, who had so many snow globes? He even had one from fucking Sea Parks. He grabbed it and lifted his arm. He was about to drop the damn thing when his eyes fell over a small spiral notebook that was still open over the desk.  
  
He looked at the last things he had been writing and his heart wrenched.  
  
_Ideas for xmas:_  
  
_1- Hamster plush. Gray or brown??? ……Ask him (subtly!)_  
  
_2- Sth edible??_  
  
_3- Matching tees_  
  
_4- Thailand snow globe_  
  
_5-_  
  
The list ended there, but Phichit could see that Yuri had decided to go with the first option, as it was circled in red. With a sigh, he placed the snow globe over the table again and went back to his room.  
  
Fuck him. The fact that Yuri had been thinking about him annoyed him more. How could he be so fucking endearing? He scoffed and checked his room one last time. He needed time alone to think and get used to the idea that things would not always turn out the way he expected them to.  
  
He left his set of keys over the dining table and closed the door of the apartment without even turning the lights off. He wasn’t coming back.  
  


* * *

  
Being there now was all that mattered. Victor wasn't stopping for anything and he sure as hell wasn't taking his foot of the gas for a bit of ice on the road. His eyes stayed glued to the GPS, reading names of streets that meant nothing to him while the world passed in a blur of red and white lights. The hiss of the tires over the smooth tarmac was lost under the pounding of his heart and the blood rushing to his ears.  
  
He grabbed his phone from the glove compartment and texted Yuri, returning his eyes to the road every few seconds.  
  
**[Виктор]**  
Im a few blocks away. where are you  
  
[Yuri]  
Waiting outside. At Livernois and McNichols  
  
**[Виктор]**  
ill be tgere in a minute. dont move  
  
He was so fucking worried he couldn’t even think. He sped up, refraining from honking when a cab in front of him stopped to let the passengers off. He drove past it, hands gripping the wheel so tightly it almost hurt.  
  
But what hurt him worst was finding Yuri standing alone in the cold, shivering, eyes unfocused and teeth chattering. He got off the car quickly and ran to his side.  
  
“You’re freezing,” he whispered, taking off his scarf and wrapping it around Yuri’s neck, who seemed to have lost his own. “Yuri? What happened?”  
  
Yuri had a far off look in his eye, like he was remembering something painful. “I want to go home,” he replied in a whisper.  
  
“Okay. That’s okay. I’m taking you home. Just… okay.”  
  
He helped him get inside the car and fastened his safety belt. He shrugged off his coat and covered him with it, setting the heating at its highest. He made a U turn and sped up, wanting to get Yuri home as soon as possible. The boy closed his eyes and tried to calm himself to no avail.  
  
“We need to get there before he leaves. I need to stop him,” he murmured.  
  
Victor frowned, unsure of what he meant. He glanced at the speedometer and decided his car could handle a little bit more.  
  


* * *

  
When he opened the door, the first thing he noticed was that the lights were on. Then he caught a glimpse of Phichit’s keys over the desk. He ran to his friend’s bedroom and found it empty, save from a few items scattered over the floor.  
  
“No…” he whimpered. “He’s gone. He told me, but I… I wouldn’t… It’s my fault.”  
  
Tears fell randomly down his face before he could stop them, and he felt Victor’s arm unexpectedly wrapping him from behind. He stiffed, taken aback by the contact but then, he slowly began to relax, his muscles losing their rigidity, but not entirely going lax as his body became accustomed to the heat of Victor’s chest against his back.  
  
“It’s okay. Whatever happened, you can fix it. You will fix it,” Victor whispered to his ear. He pressed his chin against Yuri’s shoulder, rubbing their cheeks together for a moment before stepping back.  
  
“Don’t go,” Yuri begged. “I don’t want to be alone.”  
  
“I’m not going anywhere,” he replied, intertwining their fingers and kissing Yuri’s hand.  
  


* * *

  
Phichit dragged his suitcase through the sidewalk until his arm started shaking from the effort. He dropped it to the ground and sat over it, not even knowing where he was. He had stopped a few blocks away for a drink, or more, and now he was low in cash and half drunk.  
  
A dog barked in the distance startling him, and he jerked his head. It was getting dark and he really needed to find a hotel or something. He took out his phone and opened Google Maps, trying to locate his actual position. He was far north than he had expected, between Leroy Ave and Rosemary St. He noticed a green patch in the map called Glenfield-Lannett Playground, and he walked a few more blocks until he ended up in some kind of park. He’d expected to find swings or whatever, but apparently a cramped stretch of concrete reserved for soccer was enough for it to deserve that name. At least he was sure of where he was now.  
  
He sat on the floor again and used his phone to look for available hotels in the area. The closest one was at least four miles away and expensive as fuck. He was screwed. He couldn’t walk that much in his state. He lay on the ground, his arms folded over his stomach while his legs screamed for a break. Staring at the dusky sky, he wondered whether Yuri would be worried about him or not. He hadn’t called yet, so maybe he wasn’t interested at all.  
  
A car honked right beside him and he sat up, searching for the source of the sound. A black BMW was parked at Glenfields, a man already popping his head through the window.  
  
“Are you lost?” the man asked, sounding amused. He had dark hair and a big smile, and Phichit had some troubles trying to estimate his age. He could be anywhere between twenty and thirty.  
  
“No, I’m okay, thank you. Just waiting for a friend,” he lied. He wasn’t going to jump into some stranger’s car.  
  
“You’ve been waiting for a long time,” the other added. “You sure you don’t want a lift? Sounds like you’ve been jilted.”  
  
Phichit frowned. “How do you know that?”  
  
The man’s smile accentuated. “I drove past here like twenty minutes ago and you were already there. Or that’s what he says.” He pointed to the back of the car where another man showed a grumpy expression. “Just get in the car, okay? It’s getting late. You wouldn’t want to catch a cold,” he said smoothly.  
  
Phichit thought about everything that had happened that day and how angry he was, and how much he needed a distraction even if it was a ride with a couple of strangers. He was dizzy and tired, and if he stayed there he was most likely to pass out and get robbed. He mentally groaned ‘fuck it’ and approached the car.  
  
“Don’t forget your suitcase,” the man warned. Phichit grabbed it and the man helped him to fit it inside the trunk.  
  
He sat next to him in the passenger’s seat, all the while the other man in the back stared at them in silence. Phichit found him rather handsome but his apathy was a big turn off.  
  
“Oi, Seungieee,” the driver cooed. “Cut it out with the long face, come on?”  
  
“Don’t call me that,” the other snapped. “I’m getting tired of your shit, Leroy.”  
  
“Rude,” the raven replied, although he was still smiling. “You kiss your mother with that mouth?”  
  
“No, but I kiss yours.”  
  
“Woah, what a comeback. Really mature. I wasn’t expecting that. At all. I’m shocked.” He wiped a fake tear from the corner of his eye. “My baby is growing up.”  
  
“Shut up. I’m older than you!” He kicked the back of “Leroy’s” seat, but the man smiled as if nothing had happened.  
  
“Ignore him,” he whispered in confidence to Phichit. “He’s just pissed because things don’t always go according to the plan.”  
  
“Tell me about it,” Phichit grunted.  
  
The man chuckled and turned on the engine. “I’m Jean, by the way. But everyone calls me J.J. And that one back there is Seung. You won’t find a moodier asshole, no matter how hard you try. We go to the DIME together. You know that place?” he added, after catching Phichit’s confused expression.  
  
The boy shook his head.  
  
“Detroit Institute of Music Education or whatever?” J.J asked, but Phichit shrugged. “Really? It doesn’t ring any bell with you? Nothing? It’s pretty famous. Okay, it doesn’t matter. Thing is, we performed in a pub like an hour ago. It turned out to be a fiasco.” He looked at the back of the car. “Wasn’t it?”  
  
Seung nodded, looking out of the window. “Just think about fifty middle-aged women drinking fucking sodas and flavored tea in a microscopic pub.”  
  
“It doesn’t sound that bad. I thought you were into older women since you kissed his mum,” Phichit observed.  
  
There was a moment of silence while the other two assimilated the comment and then J.J burst out in laughter. “Oh my God, I love him already. Can we keep him, please?”  
  
Seung rolled his eyes. “Whatever.”  
  
“What’s your name, clever bastard?”  
  
He hesitated for a moment but then gave in. “Phichit.”  
  
“Never heard that before. Is it Indian?”  
  
“Thai, actually,” he corrected.  
  
“So tell me, Phichit, are you new in the city? Why the luggage? ” J.J asked.  
  
“Just moving out from my old apartment,” he replied. It wasn’t a lie per se.  
  
J.J hummed and took out a small hip flask from his leather jacket, taking it to his lips and drinking swiftly. “Want a swig?” he offered.  
  
Phichit was about to decline and say he shouldn’t be drinking _and_ driving but he thought better of it and snatched the thing from the man’s fingers.  
  
“Easy there,” the man warned, watching Phichit gulp the alcohol almost frenzied. “Or not,” he added after the boy emptied the content of the flask.  
  
In the back, Seung scoffed and licked a paper as he finished rolling a blunt. Lighting it, he reclined in his seat, inhaling and exhaling as he relaxed. It amused him a bit too much to watch that stranger losing his composure so easily.  
  
They continued to drive nowhere, the smoke flooding the car and making Phichit dizzier than he could handle. But it was good, because for the first time in hours he wasn’t thinking about Yuri.  
  
Seung cleared his throat, shooting J.J a fleeting glance as he motioned to Phichit, lifting his hand. Of course, J.J nodded. Why not make the most of it. With a grunt, he straightened a little and grabbed the back of the passenger’s seat, bringing the blunt to Phichit’s lips.  
  
“Inhale and exhale,” J.J advised, taking his eyes off the road briefly. Phichit coughed after exhaling shakily, and Seung pulled away.  
  
He had been warned about the drugs people sold on the streets or the ones strangers could slip into his drink. However, no one had prepared him for the ones that came with a smile. It didn’t take long, though. Having never had any drugs in his life, it worked amazingly quick on him. He pressed his back against the seat, a throaty groan escaping his lips.  
  
"Does it feel good?" J.J asked, Seung raising an eyebrow. Phichit coughed again and raised his head slightly, humming in response.  
  
J.J winked approvingly at Seung and the other nodded in complicity.  
  
“You can leave me here, Leroy,” he announced. J.J pulled over and Seung climbed off the car, fetching his bass guitar from the trunk. “Nice to meet you, kid. See you around.”  
  
Phichit mumbled a goodbye, too nauseated to say anything coherent. He felt like he wanted to sleep, but every time he closed his eyes he would lose his balance and start slipping off his seat. After some struggling, he ended up lying on his side, his face pressed against J.J’s lap.  
  
“First time?” J.J asked. Phichit nodded. “Don’t worry. The nausea will go away. You’ll feel great in a minute.”  
  
He started petting his hair, his other hand still gripping the wheel. Phichit realized then that he’d never told J.J a destination. He had no idea where he was taking him. He tried to lift his head but J.J pushed him down.  
  
“Relax,” he ordered. His tone, though cordial, held now an underlying menace. “We’re having fun. Don’t you want to have fun?”  
  
His hand travelled further down and snaked inside his pants. Phichit flinched and whined.  
  
"Well, aren't you cute..." J.J said.  
  
He drove a few more blocks and parked, turning off the engine. He retrieved his hand from the depths of Phichit’s pants and used to unbuckle his belt.  
  
“No,” Phichit mumbled, knowing what would happen if he didn’t fight against it. He lifted his head, this time managing to sit down properly. “I wanna… wanna go…” he drawled. He found the doorknob after a few attempts and pushed the door open. He would’ve fallen face first on the concrete if J.J hadn’t grabbed his arm.  
  
“You’re leaving? Hey, you’re no fun,” J.J pouted. Phichit panicked and tried to set his arm free, and J.J seriously considered the idea of forcefully stopping him from doing so. A police car drove past them, and he decided the boy wasn’t worth the pain.  
  
He got off and opened the trunk, tossing Phichit’s suitcase to the ground.  
  
“You wanted to go? There. You can go now,” he said sharply, slamming the door.  
  
He sped up and watched through the rearview mirror as the boy stumbled down the street dragging his suitcase with difficulty, prone to end up inside another man’s car.  
  


* * *

  
They settled on the couch, Yuri resting his head over Victor’s lap, letting him pet his hair. He felt much more at ease now, though he was still worried sick about Phichit. He hadn’t answered any of his calls and the last few times he’d tried to reach him, it’d said his number was unavailable. But Phichit was smart, he wouldn’t get in trouble.  
  
He fidgeted with the card he’d found taped to the bouquet. The red tulips were placed over the desk, since he didn’t own any vase.  
  
“What does it mean?” he asked, reading the lonely word written on the paper. “Is it Russian?”  
  
“No, it’s not Russian.”  
  
Yuri knitted his brow in confusion and a smile curved Victor’s lips.  
  
“I’ve been to a lot of places before ending up here. Since I left St Petersburg I travelled all around the world, trying to find something. Even if I didn’t know what I was looking for.”  
  
His hand stilled in Yuri’s hair for a second and then he resumed his motion.  
  
“A year ago I stayed in Tierra del Fuego for a while. Mostly in Navarino Island, in the Chilean side. It’s a beautiful place, not too crowded, rather hidden from the rest of the world. It’s pretty much a fishing village. I liked that.”  
  
Yuri hummed, close to falling asleep while Victor continued to pet him.  
  
“I had the honor of meeting the last remains of the Yámana tribe there. I stayed with them, and they told me lots of stories. Some of them were incomplete, since very few of them continued to learn the Yámana language after being colonized by Spain. Thing is, they would brag about having the most perfect word ever. They told me they were even in the Guinness Book of Records. So I asked them. What’s the word?”  
  
He let out a small sigh, which could’ve been his way of laughing. “And they said _‘Mamihlapinatapai’_. To me, it sounded pretty lame. And if I’m being honest, I thought they were pulling my leg. So they explained to me what it meant.”  
  
Yuri shifted half-asleep, his attention drifting, but he wanted to hear the end of the story.  
  
“They use it to refer to that look two people share when each of them wishes that the other would initiate something they both desire but neither dares to begin.”  
  
Yuri frowned, having already forgotten the beginning of the phrase. It sounded too complex to be a record of something.  
  
“I didn’t understand it at first. I was still too influenced by my old lifestyle. And I thought that if I wanted something, why should I wait? Why shouldn’t I take it? What was so perfect about that word, anyways?”  
  
“It took me a whole year to finally get it. It isn’t about desire. Hell, it isn’t even about wanting something. Last night I couldn’t stop thinking about this word. Remember when I told you I’ve been looking for you?”  
  
Yuri nodded, now fully awake.  
  
“I meant it. I was so happy that it was you, so happy that I wanted to make you mine right there. And I would’ve. But I was glad we couldn’t.”  
  
Yuri’s heart wrenched. What was he implying?  
  
“Because I understand now,” Victor went on. “It’s about respect. It’s about waiting until both of us can’t hold it any longer, until the urge is so strong you can’t stop yourself anymore. And I waited for so long to find you that I’m willing to keep waiting. I’m willing to keep looking at you, and wait until you’re ready. Until your eyes finally tell me that this is what you want.”  
  
“I don’t want to rush this. I really care about you, and I don’t want to lose you. You told me you’ve never been in a relationship. Well, mine never lasted more than a few months, because I’ve never wanted them to be serious. But I do now. I would be happy spending time with you only talking or having dinner or playing your games. I don’t need anything else.”  
  
He threaded his fingers through Yuri’s hair lightly. “And I wanted you to know that.”  
  
_Because that’s my way of showing my love._

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a scene with a subtle attempted non-con. It's not described in detail, though. Kinda spoilerish, but I don't want anyone reading it and feeling bad because I didn't warn them.


	6. Vanilla

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I finished writing this at 4am. Why must inspiration come at such strange times?
> 
> Beware the fluff.
> 
> (Any typo... a wizard did it!)

The room was dark and impregnated with the strong scent of alcohol and sweat. A low hum made him frown, and his face was briefly illuminated by a dim glint. He rolled over and tell-tale clink of bottles and cans awoke him fully. His mouth was dry and sticky with thick saliva. He tried to swallow but his tongue felt like sandpaper.  
  
Over the nightstand, his phone buzzed again demanding to be plugged in, the screen lighting up intermittently. He moaned and grabbed the damn thing before retreating under the duvet. He unlocked it with trembling fingers and realized that the battery was, indeed, pretty drained. He was about to turn it off and go back to sleep when his eyes fell over the top right corner of the screen. It was long past 9 PM, meaning he had slept the whole afternoon away. He had a few missing calls and other notifications icons, but he decided to ignore them as he clumsily leapt from the bed, hurrying to the bathroom.  
  
It was small and poorly illuminated, but it was fair for the price he was paying. Once again bothered by the distinct lack of mirrors, he opened the little cabinet that held an array of toiletries for the guests and snatched a small toothpaste tube from the shelf. He’d to buy himself because, of course, the hotel wouldn’t provide it. He closed his eyes and brushed his teeth trying to get rid of his morning breath. Was it still morning breath if you got up at night? He shrugged off the thought and spat the last remains of toothpaste mixed with blood.  
  
He hesitated but then grabbed a bar of soap, decided to make quick work of the shower. The water was colder than he would’ve liked, and the low pressure was annoying, but he was getting used to it. He lathered and rinsed his skin as swiftly as possible, scrubbing every inch of himself with more force than necessary. The shampoo the hotel offered was vanilla and coconut scented, and it reminded him of Yuri, for some reason. He mentally tsked. What was he doing?  
  
By the time he dragged himself from the steady stream of water, it was freezing and his lips were blue, teeth chattering. He dried himself off roughly, wrapping a towel around his waist. Back in the bedroom, he plugged in his phone and slouched over the bed, scrunching his nose. The musky aroma of cheap vodka and liquors hours ago so intoxicating, now only helped to the nausea. He closed his eyes again, wishing the headache would just go away.  
  
He let himself doze off for some minutes and then stood up again, crouching by his suitcase. He started taking out different items of clothing and tossing them to the floor uncaringly. He was looking for something in particular. He knew what he wanted, and he found it at the bottom, wrinkled and mistreated. His favorite dress shirt. He liked the color. It was of a vibrant red that highlighted his skin and hugged his slim chest perfectly. Had he had any muscles to show off, that shirt would’ve been a great choice.  
  
When he managed to button up the thing without missing any hole in the middle, he yanked on a pair of dark jeans so tight they could’ve been painted. Grabbing some cash, a poorly charged phone and the keys of the hotel room, he left.  
  
He was ready to take everything the night had to offer him.  
  
Stumbling down the narrow stairs, he crossed the lobby and slammed his keys over the counter. The receptionist grabbed them and murmured a faint ‘have a good night’ before closing her eyes again.  
  
Phichit didn’t say anything and yanked the door open, the wind ruffling his hair. The cool night air prickled on his skin as he stepped outside. He vaguely remembered that he didn’t bring any jacket, but he couldn’t find it in him to care.  
  
The sickly yellow street lamps hovered over him, and he looked up at the starless sky. And he wondered if Yuri was doing okay. He’d been thinking about him almost every day since they had parted.  
  
But tonight was different.  
  
It was November 28.  
  
And the moon looked with sadness as Phichit walked lonely streets searching for something so out of reach. In the end, he just decided to drop by at the same place, as always.  
  
"What can I get you tonight?" the bartender asked, wiping out a goblet. Phichit shrugged.  
  
"Surprise me,” he sighed. He rested his head on his arms and looked forward at the bartender mixing his drink.

“Long night?” the man huffed, crouching behind the bar to retrieve more ingredients.  
  
“Something like that,” Phichit accepted. “Kinda shitty.”  
  
“Sorry to hear, kid,” the man said. “But that's life for you.”  
  
He sat Phichit’s drink down in front of him; a fancy hurricane glass filled half way with ice and half way with a green liquid. It was decorated with a cherry skewered on a little sword. Phichit thought it was cute. He picked up the cherry and chewed it with a frown. He downed the thing in seconds before standing up and walking towards the dance floor.  
  
This repeated several times until he could hardly distinguish up from down. He swayed his hips to the music, maybe encouraged by the alcohol, maybe because of something else. His eyes scanned the mass of hot bodies like a predator while the booming bass pounded in synch with his heart.  
  
At last, his gaze fell upon a guy slouched over the counter sipping some rum. He had black hair and slanted eyes, and Phichit decided it was good enough. He approached slowly and dropped by his side, looking at him with half lidded eyes.  
  
“Hey there,” he said with an inviting smile.  
  
The man looked at him and nodded before returning his eyes to his drink.  
  
“Man of few words, I see,” he purred.  
  
The man didn’t reply nor changed his expression and Phichit pouted. He roamed his eyes over his well built body, taking his time to admire his broad shoulders and strong biceps that strained against his leather jacket. He was about to speak again when he felt a hand gripping his arm tightly.  
  
“Move,” someone whispered threateningly in his ear. Against his instincts, Phichit turned around and was surprised to find that his adversary was no more than 5'4. He certainly had some guts, being such a tiny man. Then again, he himself wasn’t really on the tall side.  
  
“Or what?” he replied, taking courage from God knows where.  
  
“Or I’ll break your stupid face,” the tiny blond spat.  
  
“Jeez, just go to bed and leave us alone. What are you? Twelve?” Phichit asked with a growing bravado. He stood up and faced the little dwarf that was ruining his opportunity of getting a good shag. He smirked and stood proud, glad to know that he were at least a few inches taller.  
  
“Old enough to kick your ass,” the other hissed, jumping to grab his collar.  
  
“Yuri,” the man in the leather jacket scolded. Phichit made a weird sound that sounded like a squeal, and the blond looked at him as if he were mental. Which he probably was. He was starting to imagine things. “Calm down,” said the raven.  
  
The blond withdrew his hands with a huff, looking incredibly pissed. “Whatever.”  
  
His partner reached into his back pocket to dig out his wallet and left some bills over the counter. He jumped from his high stool and joined the blond bitch. “Let’s go.”  
  
Feeling bold, or maybe masochistic, Phichit went after them and stretched his arm to place a hand over the man’s ass. Bad call.  
  
The fist appeared out of nowhere, hitting his jaw with such force blood pooled into his mouth. Pain erupted from the point of impact immediately, and he fell to the floor holding his face. When he opened his eyes, the tiny blond was looking at him with nothing but disgust, his fury barely contained by strong arms that held him back.  
  
“Let me go, Otabek, I’ll fucking kill him.”  
  
“We have things to do tomorrow. Don’t waste your time,” Otabek replied.  
  
Phichit didn’t get to hear what the other said, and he might have dozed off because the next thing he saw was the moon. He was outside again. The cold breeze was no longer a nuisance, rather the only thing that kept him awake.  
  
He looked at the starless night and felt sad and lonely. If it was so obvious to perceive that something was missing from the sky, why was it so hard for him to admit the hole in his heart, much more painful and noticeable?  
  
He'd been told that the pain dulled with time, and that things always got better. But how could things get better when the only way to heal was letting go? If getting past the pain meant forgetting his friend, then he'd chose to suffer his entire life.

  


* * *

  


Sleep was restless that night. Victor had stayed with him for dinner, but then he’d said he had things to do and that they would talk in the morning. He’d kissed him on the cheek and left. Yuri wished he hadn’t. The apartment felt too empty with no one else to talk.  
  
He was lying on his bed with an arm over his eyes, his heart beating at an unnatural rate. He’d tried to sleep, but the events of the day tainted his dreams with fear and anxiety, and he was now fully awake. It’d been a week since the last time he’d seen Phichit, and he was worried sick. He had called everywhere, every hospital and police station in Detroit. He’d even asked around the campus, but much to his dismay, no one recalled seeing him. The only one who had remembered something remotely helpful had been that Mexican guy from Organic Chemistry. He’d said he might have seen him in a bar downtown, but that he were too drunk to be sure. That was the only hint he had, and maybe not even that.  
  
He was thinking he should probably get up and do something useful, like wash the dishes or finish his essay, when his phone ringed. It had been almost 2 AM the last time he’d checked and it couldn’t have passed more than ten minutes. He rolled over and grabbed his phone, so not ready to have a conversation, but the name on the screen made him freeze. He accepted the call immediately.  
  
“Phichit?” he asked hesitantly, without knowing if he should be relieved or worried.  
  
“Panda,” slurred his friend. “I… thought about it and…” There was silence and then a hiccup. "Panda." He was stumbling down a street, his footsteps audible through the phone.  
  
Yuri squinted in the dark, trying to make sense of what he’d just heard. “Phichit? Are you alright? Where are you?” he asked, voice rough and husky with the remnants of sleep, holding the phone to his ear in a loose grip. "Are you drunk?" he questioned, his brows pinched together.  
  
Phichit started to laugh. “Noooo, I’m not drunk. I’m okay,” he managed to drawl in between laughs. He clearly wasn’t. “You know… I read your diary …or whatever…? That thing. And I always… I always wanted a … a panda hamster! Are they real? They gotta be real.” There was a moment of muffled sounds through the phone. “Fuck,” Phichit yelled, "Shit. Fucking lamppost. Almost face planted it."  
  
There was a metallic sound and a curse, and Yuri could only guess that he’d just kicked the streetlamp. After some seconds, his friend started talking again, but he was mostly laughing and raving. Yuri frowned, finding it difficult to understand the slurred words between Phichit's chortling. “What? I don’t understand you. Where are you?” he asked, sitting up in his bed and staring at the darkness of the far wall.  
  
“I wass at a place. Now I'm at this place. Yuuuriiii. If you were a hamster, you’d be a cute little squishy hamster. You’d be… you’d be one of those Russian hamsters. You know what I mean? Those with the… with the stripe on… You know what I’m saying. You’d be one of those.” There was a loud honking and yelling in the background, to which Phichit replied with a scream, “Fuck you too, buddy! I’m talking to my friend over here!”  
  
Yuri made a frustrated sound, shifting in his sheets and then standing up. “Phichit. Listen to me. Where are you? Where have you been staying? Is there someone with you who can help you home?” he questioned, worry starting to creep into him. He shouldn’t be asking those questions. It should’ve been him, there, taking his friend somewhere safe.  
  
“I remembered something,” Phichit said all of a sudden, turning his attention back to the phone. “I was at this bar and there was this guy and he said,” laughs, “he said he was Yuri. And I thought he was a liar because I was sure he wasn’t you. He looked nothing like you. And then something happened... and the fucker punched me in the face! It was epic, though,” he added with a dramatic sigh, as if remembering good times.  
  
Yuri frowned at those words. “Are you hurt, Phichit? Did someone hurt you?”  
  
“Neh, ‘m fine.”  
  
“Okay,” Yuri accepted. “Okay. Now listen to me Phichit. You said you were at a bar. What was the name of the bar? Can you tell me that?” His words were slow and clear, as if he were talking to a two-year old. He opened his laptop to be ready, should he follow any instruction. He squished his brain trying to remember the name of the bar Leo had told him. He looked up different bars in Detroit, trying to see if any of them sounded familiar. “Phichit. Are you there? Listen to me. Was it Temple? Was the bar called Temple or Temper or something like that?”  
  
There was a moment of silence in which Yuri was only able to hear Phichit’s noisy breathing. His heart skipped a beat thinking that his friend might have passed out, but then he heard some shuffle. “Yeah, I think there were a T and a P in there,” he slurred.  
  
“Okay. Okay. That’s good,” he said more to himself than to his friend. “So where are you now? Are you anywhere near the bar? Can you tell me the name of the street?”  
  
“Ughhhhh,” his friend groaned. “Why are you so interested in names?”  
  
Yuri heard a grunt as Phichit settled himself on the ground, pressing his back against the façade of an old building. And then he spoke again, “What does Yuri mean? Is it a real name? I always thought it was sort of a nickname but it seemed rude for me to ask if it was your real name so I guess I just rolled with it? I don’t know.” Yuri remained silent while Phichit coughed and retched. “Yuri,” he whispered with a cracking voice. “I always liked the sound of it. Yuri. Yuri. Yuri,” he started repeating it over and over, and Yuri let him rant while he kept his ear glued to the phone, looking for his coat. After repeating his name more than fifteen times, Phichit finally stopped. “Now it doesn’t sound like a word. It’s weird. Yuri. No, still nothing. Yuri. Yuri. Oh my God. It’s not a word anymore??? I’m so sorry. I’m so so so sorry,” he slurred with anguish, starting to cry. “I destroyed your name? I’m sorry. I’m such a shitty friend and now you don’t have a name anymore just because I liked it too much.”  
  
“You’re not a shitty friend, Phichit,” Yuri answered, buttoning his jeans. “You’re my best friend and you know that.”  
  
“I’ll let you destroy my name if you want to,” Phichit offered.  
  
“I’m going to find you and we’ll talk about it, okay? Just stay where you are. Don’t move. You hear me?”  
  
Phichit nodded, without realizing that Yuri wasn’t able to see him through the phone.  
  
"I missed you," he said with only a touch of a slur.  
  
Yuri winced at his words. “I missed you, too,” he replied. And he meant it. “I’m coming for you and I’m bringing you home. Wait for me.”  
  
"Okay," he said then. He was feeling better, a comfortable heat expanding through his chest.  
  
Yuri checked the DDOT’s app and it said the next bus would be arriving within the following 15 minutes. That, plus a 40 minutes trip and then walking... It was going to take more than an hour. It was too much.  
  
"Don't hung up, okay. I gotta-" He dropped the keys in his frenzied state. "Fuck. I gotta take the bus and that might take some time but don't hung up. Just keep talking."  
  
"Okay," Phichit said again. He was strangely calm, only a bit sleepy but nothing he couldn't handle.  
  


*****

  
Yuri was at Oak Drive Cass & Canfield when Phichit said the words.

"It's dying."

"What's dying?" Yuri asked, and checked his current location.

"My phone."

The line went silent before Yuri could reply.  


*****

  
He found him playing with a stray cat. He had blood on his face and smelled like puke and sweat. Yuri didn't care. He crouched next to his friend and hugged him tight. Now he knew how much he'd missed him. Phichit was trembling so he took off his coat and wrapped it around his shoulder. His friend buried his face in the coat and inhaled its scent. Yuri pretended not to notice.  


*****

  
Yuri dropped Phichit over his bed, covering him with a blanket.

"Do you need something else?"

 _You,_ Phichit thought. But he shook his head. Yuri turned to leave but a hand wrapped around his wrist.

"Stay?"

Phichit lifted the blanket subtly and Yuri nodded. They'd done it multiple times, it wasn't something new. But this time it felt different. Maybe it was because of the confession.

"Only until you fall asleep," he said. He didn't know if it was a warning for his friend or himself. He crawled under the sheets next to Phichit and his heat surrounded him.

Phichit pressed his body against his side, but Yuri didn't complain. He blamed it on the alcohol. Maybe he shouldn't have.

Only for the sake of being positioned comfortable enough to avoid his limbs from hurting in the morning, he curled an arm around his friend while staring up at the ceiling.

Phichit exhaled softly. Hot breath against his neck that left him second-guessing his decision of indulging his friend. However, the soft breaths soothed Yuri after a week of fears, and the silkiness of his friend's hair forced him to brush his fingers over it repeatedly; slow and light.  


*****

  
They weren't sleeping. It showed on the way they were breathing too fast, their muscles too stiff. Phichit propped himself up on one elbow, and Yuri squeezed his eyes tighter, slowing his breathing. But Phichit knew.

He pressed their foreheads together and Yuri couldn't keep pretending. They eyes met moments after. It was dark and hard to say, but Yuri thought his friend looked sad. He didn't say anything.

He looked away. Phichit didn't.

“I still wanna move out,” his friend said, his words muffled against Yuri's shoulder.

“I know,” Yuri replied, eyes fixed on the ceiling, though he wasn’t really looking.

Phichit shifted and Yuri felt fingers threading through his hair. He didn’t acknowledge them.

“Are you okay?” his friend asked.

“I will be,” was his ambiguous reply. “Just don’t be a stranger.”

“I couldn’t.”

After that, they didn’t talk again until the birds started chirping at the sun and both of them were once more awake.

“Yuri?” Phichit asked.

“Yeah?” Yuri still had his eyes closed and the frown that people have when they're sleepy. He was enjoying the sun that filtered through the curtains, warming his skin. He didn't want to get up just yet. It didn't bother him the honking coming from the street. It didn't bother him the foreign toes that graced his calf or the hand holding his hip.

“Happy birthday.”

He smiled.

* * *

  
  
Victor sprinkled salt over the pork chops with a focused hum as Maccachin watched him with interest.  
  
“No, pretty boy,” he said with a smile. “These are not for you.”  
  
He grabbed one of the pork chops and coated it with flour carefully. When he was satisfied with the result, he dipped it into a bowl of beaten eggs. He had never done it before, but it couldn’t be that hard, right?  
  
He dropped it into a saucer full of bread crumbs, rolling and patting it with gentle hands. He did the same with the other three pork chops and finally placed them carefully inside the frying pan. The oil hissed and he stepped back.  
  
They’ve said in the video that _tonkatsu_ needed more or less six minutes of frying to be ready, but he thought it still looked raw. He pinched them with a fork and turned them around. It was clear that the bread was pallid and not at all golden like it should be. Maybe he should’ve turned on the stove earlier.  
  
He waited a bit more and fished them whit another fork. Once they were placed over a bedding of paper towels, he cut a bit and tasted it.  
  
“Hmm, not bad. Maybe a little dry but…” Maccachin looked at him and tilted his head. Victor petted him.  
  
Yep, Yuri would definitely like that. He cut the fried pork chops in strips and set them aside.  
  
“What’s next?” He read the list again and nodded.  
  
Grabbing another pan, he placed it over the stove and uncapped the soy sauce. He added hot water and a tablespoon of an instant fish broth powder he had found at the market. He was supposed to be using homemade _dashi_ , but that was something too complex for his almost non-existent culinary skills.  
  
He didn’t use sake either. They didn’t have that any at the local store, and he didn't want to go to a bigger market and draw too much attention. In the end, he just settled for a little bit of dry vermouth. According to what he had read, it would do the trick. He stirred the mix, asking for forgiveness for such a sacrilege and tasted it.  
  
“Too salty,” he mumbled with a cough. He didn’t know if it was legal, but he poured more water and tasted it again. “That’s better.”  
  
He was reluctant to add the sugar. He wasn’t exactly a fan of bittersweet dishes, but maybe it was better to just follow the recipe, even if it was in his own way.  
  
Once he was done, he let that boiling and started with the rice, the easiest part. He opened the box and read the instructions on the back. _‘It doesn’t stick!’_ it said with bright red letters. That was something.  
  
As promised, it didn't stick. He followed the rest of the recipe without problems, except for a burned finger and a little bit of pork that ended firstly on the floor, and lately inside Maccachin's mouth.  
  
He packed everything and headed towards Yuri's place. It was going to be a nice surprise. Yuri had been so worried about his friend, but he deserved a break and a happy birthday.  
  
He climbed the stairs two steps at a time and opened the door with the spare key Yuri had given him.  
  
Yuri was waiting for him. He was happy.  
  
He liked the surprise even though it wasn't as good as the one from the restaurant. He smiled a lot.  
  
Victor realized he was falling in love.  
  


* * *

  
The letter came mid December. He'd been expecting it, but it was still a surprise. A bitter one.  
  
He didn't know what to do, so he called Victor.  
  
Victor was okay with it. He acted as if it wasn't a big deal, but Yuri could tell he was happy.  
  
Yuri was happy too. And a bit scared. But mostly in love.  
  
The landlady had given him a few weeks, but Victor said he could move in right then if he wanted.  
  
Victor helped Yuri pack, even if he wasn't of much help because he kept kissing him and distracting him from the task in hands.  
  
They hadn't kissed so much since they had met. Yuri wondered what had changed. Or when.  
  
It wasn't an unwelcome change.  


*****

  
Yuri was in his new room. Victor had arranged it just for him. He'd said it was small and simple, but Yuri loved it.

He lay on his bed with his eyes lost in the distance.

 **[Yuri]**  
How is having sex with a guy?

 **[Leo]**  
What...? O_o

 **[Yuri]**  
I'm serious.

 **[Leo]**  
Uhm why? Something to confess? ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

 **[Yuri]**  
I don't know

 **[Leo]**  
Dude ur dating smn and u didn't tell me? Rude

 **[Yuri]**  
Nevermind

Yuri dropped his phone and closed his eyes. It was his first night at Victor’s place, but they'd been sort of together for almost a month and he was getting curious. He'd tried watching gay porn to see if he would be comfortable with that, but it looked gross and painful. He really wanted to try, though.  
Maybe it was different in real life.

He didn't know how to ask him, either.

 **[Leo]**  
Is it serious?

 **[Yuri]**  
I think I'm in love

 **[Leo]**  
_Dude_


	7. Spicy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Extra cheesy chapter to my extra adorable readers (∩˃o˂∩)♡
> 
> I can’t believe the amount of kudos this story got since the last chapter. You guys are the best.
> 
> Thanks for your continuous support and special thanks to Marimo141 for her thoroughly explanation about Detroit, you did an amazing job! 
> 
> Enjoy, sinners ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

A cold waterdrop running down his hot skin made him shiver and Yuri closed his eyes, letting his mind drift towards more demanding issues. He had heard everything Leo had to say about his personal experiences— maybe in more depth than he would’ve liked, but now the decision was up to him. If he really wanted to take his relationship with Victor one step further, he would need to exploit his strengths. And that meant making use of those things that made him unique.  
  
After taking the quickest shower known to man, he turned off the tap and stepped out of the bathtub. He dried his hair off with one of Victor towels and stood in front of the mirror staring at his reflection. His first impression was that he looked like shit. How could he ever get intimate with Victor if he was so self-conscious about his body? Since he’d left Japan to study in Detroit, he’d gained a few pounds. It wasn’t too noticeable, but he _knew_. They had packed mostly on his hips and lower abdomen, the abs for which he’d worked so hard back then, now completely gone. His formerly defined chest felt soft under his fingers while he poked at it.  
  
He still had some appeal, though. His legs were toned and firm, and he had to admit that his face wasn’t too ugly to see either. He leaned forward to look more closely at the skin of his face, proud to see it was unmarred and without pimples. He looked at his upper lip and his jaw, but there was no trace of hair there. He’d never been able to grow a beard, although he hoped that would change in the near future. Under further inspection, he noticed that he had some stray hairs on his eyebrows that were starting to grow back. He would have to get his tweezers and pluck them before they get out of control, but it wasn’t his priority right now.  
  
He opened the cabinet and fumbled a little until he found what he was looking for. With a grunt, he pushed away from the sink and stepped backwards. There was something else bothering him. He let go a heavy sigh and held his breath as he approached the safety razor to his skin.  
  
“Okay, be careful, you don’t want to cut your dick off. Just…” The first stroke was light and clean, and it went barely unnoticed as the rat’s nest he had between his legs continued to look like such. “Okay, not as bad as I thought. Here we go…”  
  
He continued to get rid of the unwanted hair, pulling his member downward and shaving in steady strokes towards the navel, making sure to stretch the skin with his thumb and index finger. Sometimes, a little nick would appear and tiny droplets of blood would start oozing out from the scratch. But it wasn’t painful, just a little uncomfortable at the most.  
  
Encouraged by the results, he got carried away and the blade glided over his skin quickly and not as carefully as it should’ve been. Alright, so maybe it wasn’t as bad as he’d thought. He held the penis upward, spreading his legs a little to have better access as he shaved downwards. However, the second the blade came in contact with his skin, he cursed and dropped it to the floor.  
  
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he hissed through clenched teeth, looking in awe as a bloody stripe appeared over his skin. “Ughhhh,” he groaned.  
  
The worst that could happen to him right now was having his dick aching so bad he couldn’t even put pants on, let alone have sex. Maybe he should’ve used shaving cream instead of just soap? It was too late for that now, though. He pressed a towel against the cut, with a grunt of discomfort. He decided that razors were way to dangerous to be experimenting near such a delicate part of his body, and rummaged through the cabinet looking for a pair of scissors instead. He found hair shears inside a plastic cup alongside a comb and something that looked a lot like a digital thermometer, but he couldn’t really tell.  
  
He trimmed neatly the remaining hair, settling for a simpler look. He didn’t want to be baby shaved, just not untidy? He decided to let a small patch near the base, still noticeable but definitely sexier.  
  
He was sitting over the toilet, giving the final touches with his nose almost buried inside his belly button when someone knocked on the door. Someone being Victor, because who else would it be?  
  
“Are you okay?” Victor asked, clearly worried. “You’ve been there for more than an hour.”  
  
Yuri covered his mouth with his hands and squeezed his eyes. “Yeah, I’m okay!” he breathed. “Sorry, I’m almost done.”  
  
_Great, now he’s going to think I’m constipated or something_ , he thought. _What if he thinks I was jerking off? No, no one jerks off for an entire hour… But what if he thinks **I** do?_  
  
He got to his feet and almost slipped off the toilet, since the floor was wet and he was still very much naked. He quickly swept the floor, tossing the hairs down the drain and hoping it wouldn’t clog.  
  
He put on his jeans and a clean t-shirt, and exited the room, feeling his dick itchy against his boxers.  
  
Victor was waiting for him in the kitchen. “You said you would prepare us something tasty for dinner,” he pouted. “You took too long, I’m hungry.”  
  
“S-Sorry,” Yuri panicked, but was unable to find any normal excuse. “I’ll start right away.”  
  
Yes, he had offered to make dinner for them since it was his first night at Victor’s place and he felt it was the least he could do. However, the former skater only had frozen meals and junk food. To say Yuri was shocked would be a huge understatement.  
  
He huffed and closed the fridge. “Why do you have a kitchen so big if you don’t have any ingredients to cook with?” he asked with a frown. “I thought you, of all the people, would eat healthy. I don't know if I can cook anything if all you’ve got are frozen burritos and chips.” He opened another cupboard and turned around with an exasperated expression. “Only Doritos? Really? Not even pasta?”  
  
Victor shrugged one shoulder. “I like them,” he pouted, approaching Yuri and wrapping his arms around his waist. “They taste good,” he whispered against his ear and started planting soft kisses all over his nape. “Really good,” he added, licking and sucking on the skin. It was still moist and smelled of soap and vanilla, and Victor loved it.  
  
Yuri dropped the Doritos bag and pressed his hands against the counter. “Victor…” he groaned. “What are you doing?”  
  
“Why? Don’t you like it?”  
  
Yuri could hear the tease on his voice as the man slipped his hands under the hem of his shirt, coasting over his abdomen. He used one single finger to trace a slow line from his navel to the waistband of his jeans and then stopped. Yuri bit his bottom lip to silence the moan that threatened to escape his mouth, but couldn’t repress the movement of his hips as he jerked them back against Victor.  
  
Victor took this as his cue to go on, and he pressed the flat of his tongue against Yuri’s neck, eliciting a cry from the boy. “V-Victor!” His name came out as nothing more than a heavy breath as Yuri tilted his head back.  
  
“Yuri,” Victor replied, his voice hoarse, almost primal. He grabbed Yuri by the hips and turned him around to claim his mouth. They’ve done this multiple times, but tonight it felt different, more intimate. There was something implicit in the way Victor moved his body, his kisses felt more urgent and his hands bolder. He lifted him up and placed him over the counter, positioning himself in between his parted legs. Tilting his head to the side, he deepened the kiss, exploring Yuri’s mouth greedily. Blinded with lust and without a second thought, he let his right hand dip to the waistband of Yuri’s jeans. The boy immediately froze, pressing his hands against Victor's chest to pull him back.  
  
“W-Wait…Victor,” he murmured, breaking the kiss. He looked to the side. “I can’t.”  
  
“Oh.” Victor withdrew his hands, wiping out rests of saliva from his chin. “I'm sorry. I—”  
  
“No,” Yuri hushed him. “Don't apologize. It's okay. What I meant is that don’t know where to go from here,” he whispered. “You'll have to...” he lowered his head and a faint blush appeared on his cheeks. “You'll have to... teach me," he finished, locking his eyes with Victor's.  
  
Victor thought he might die right then and there just from seeing Yuri blushing and out of breath. None of them moved until Victor planted his hands on each side of Yuri's tights, leaning forward to crash his lips against Yuri's.  
  
Yuri responded the best he could, mimicking Victor's moves while his mind was pure chaos. When Victor licked his lower lip, Yuri shivered and wrapped his legs around him, bringing him closer. He felt his body go pliant as their tongues briefly touched, igniting something inside his brain that made him shiver with delight.  
  
It was happening. Really happening. How far would Victor go? How far was he himself willing to go? It didn't matter now, the only thing he could think about was how good and natural it felt. His body moved against Victor of his own accord and before he could realize what he was doing, he was tugging at the hem of Victor's shirt, urging him to take it off. Were those his hands? They had to be.  
  
Victor broke the kiss briefly to yank his shirt off, tossing it to the floor. He was back almost immediately, kissing him with bigger hunger, if that was possible. Yuri touched the skin of his back, gasping at how hot and smooth it was. He scraped his nails against his taut muscles when Victor rolled his hips, causing him to moan in pleasure. He felt his stomach tighten and his blood rush to his lower body, his jeans suddenly too uncomfortable as they strained mercilessly against his erection.  
  
"Hah... Victor..." he panted. _Harder_ , he wanted to say. _Faster_. But the words died in his throat because of his shyness and because in that exact moment Victor grabbed his ass pulling him towards his body and making a wave of pleasure wash over him.  
  
"Oh God," he grunted, leaning forward to rest his forehead over Victor's shoulder.  
  
"Is that good?" Victor asked and once more, his hand snaked under Yuri's shirt to tease his skin. He found one of his nipples and rubbed it softly, observing Yuri's reaction. The boy thrashed and his moan was muffled against his neck. Encouraged by how responsive Yuri was, he pinched the little nub and the boy screamed before biting on his shoulder harshly enough to draw blood.  
  
"Oh God," he repeated. How was that possible? How was he discovering now that playing with his nipples felt so good? It felt like a lot of wasted time. Aching for more friction, he rutted against Victor like a dog in heat. Taking the hint, Victor retreated his hand ignoring the whine from Yuri's mouth. He considered unzipping Yuri's jeans with his teeth, but it seemed a bit too much so he used both of his hands to whip his fly open. Yuri lifted his hips meekly to allow him to yank both his jeans and boxers down. There was a moment of silence while Victor looked at his newly freed member with half lidded eyes.  
  
"S-Stop staring!" Yuri whimpered, feeling self-conscious. Had been a bad idea to shave his pubs? Was he too small? He was sure he wasn't _that_ small.  
  
"Just enjoying the view," Victor replied in a low grunt, before sinking to his knees. "I like what you did here," he added, moving his fingers over the dark patch of hair below his navel. Yuri blushed harder and his eyes rolled back when Victor gave a small lick to the head of his cock. He grabbed a fistful of ash blond hair only to steady himself and Victor raised his eyes to look him through his lashes.  
  
There was something tantalizing about making eye contact during such an intimate moment, and Yuri couldn't bring himself to look away even while Victor started to take him inside his mouth. He worked his way up slowly, giving small strokes to the base at the same time he licked the underside of his shaft.  
  
It felt so good, so _hot_. It was a fully new sensation, incomparable with the feeling of jerking off.  
  
When Victor hollowed his cheeks and started bobbing his head, Yuri couldn't bear it any longer and his hips involuntarily lifted to meet him halfway. Victor stopped stroking him and used that hand to hold him back in place. He continued to suck and lick at a punishingly slow pace and Yuri found himself unable to control his trembling legs. He tugged on Victor's hair lightly but insistently bringing him down, and the man speeded his movements.  
  
He was so close, so close. He felt his cock swelling further, his sac tightening and a throaty groan escaped his lips. "Victor," he warned. "I can't... I'm gonna....aghh..."  
  
Victor bobbed his head back, now only the tip inside his mouth, and gave a tentative lick to the slit that was already covered on precum. He hummed softly, and the vibrations reverberating all along his shaft were enough to send Yuri over the edge.  
  
He kicked his head back, bumping it against the cupboard, but he couldn't bring himself to care about the pain. His chest heaved violently while he tried to recover, his eyes tightly shut. When he opened them again, he found Victor a few steps away from him, bent over the counter with his right hand inside his pants, finishing himself up. He was quiet, not a single sound coming from his mouth, only the slapping of skin against skin and the occasional jingling of his belt.  
  
It had to be the hottest thing he'd ever seen. He felt bad about being unable to pleasure Victor while the other had been so compliant. He hopped off the counter and approached Victor from the back, zipping up his jeans. The man had his eyes closed and was clearly focused on what he was doing, therefore a surprised gasp left his mouth when he felt Yuri's hand over his own.  
  
"Let me," Yuri whispered. Seeming incapable of words at the moment, Victor nodded and lifted his hand to let Yuri move as he pleased. His fingers were hesitant and shy against his shaft, so Victor guided him.  
  
"Squeeze harder," he grunted. "There. Yes, that feels good."  
  
He tipped his head back, exposing his neck while he swallowed hard. Yuri watched as his Adam's apple traveled up and then down and couldn't refrain from plastering wet kisses all over his pulse. Victor nodded approvingly.  
  
"That's... good. Good." His breathing was laborious and his cheeks were flushed. Yuri wasn't sure, but he guessed that Victor might be really close.  
  
"Flick your wrist when you get to the-" His words were cut by a sharp moan when Yuri did as commanded. "Keep... going. Keep..."  
  
Yuri was now stroking in earnest, his groin pressed to the cleft of Victor's ass. He felt Victor convulse beneath him and moments later, a creamy wetness coated his fingers. He took his hand off the depths of Victor's pants and watched it in awe. It was covered in white rivulets that trailed down his fingers and towards the palm. He lifted it and inhaled the musky scent before giving it a tentative lick. It was somewhat salty, and it reminded him of sweat and, at the same time, of brine? Not particularly unpleasant, but neither enjoyable. He snapped out of his trance when he felt Victor moving in front of him and realized that he was still pressing him against the counter.  
  
He jumped back, his sneakers screeching against the tiled floor. "Sorry."  
  
Victor turned around, his pants still open and his hair disheveled. He grabbed Yuri's wrist and seemed to hesitate before lifting it to lick slow and steady all of his fingers.  
  
"You did great," he murmured once he was finished. He stepped back and watched Yuri over his shoulder. "I'm going to change my clothes into something more comfortable. What do you say if we forget about the homemade dinner and we just order something instead?"  
  
Yuri nodded, he didn't trust his voice. Victor smiled and exited the kitchen, leaving him standing there with his face in his hands.  
  
"Okay," he muttered in a broken whisper. If he still held any doubt about getting intimate with Victor, now they were completely gone.  
  
He walked with jelly limbs towards the sink and washed his hands thoroughly before splashing water to his face. Feeling calmer, he crouched and grabbed the bag of Doritos that lay forgotten over the floor. He put it back in place and went to the living room to wait for Victor. He sat over the couch stiffly, still a little out of breath. So that’s what he was missing. A part of him believed he was too young to be doing those things, and the other half screaming something along the lines ‘now or never’. He ran a shaky hand over his hair, stroking his damp bangs back. Well, he was screwed. There was no denying now, that man was his other half.  
  
Seconds passed and Victor appeared next to him wearing nothing more than sweatpants, his bare chest in full display. He picked up the phone from its base and turned around giving Yuri time to appreciate his toned shoulders and- no, of course he wasn't staring at his ass.  
  
"Is pizza okay?" Victor asked with a boring tone. Yuri nodded and Victor plopped by his side on the couch, resting his feet over the coffee table. "You call," he said, handing him the phone.  
  
Yuri shot him a questioning glance and Victor shrugged. "As much as I would like to say that it is because I want to hear your voice now that you sound so out of breath, I really don't know where to call. Never ordered food before."  
  
"Right, because you always cook for yourself," Yuri joked, bumping his shoulder.  
  
"Hey, if I want to live on Hot Pockets, I will. My life, my choices," he replied.  
  
"Just give me that. But tomorrow I’m going to the store to buy real things," Yuri admonished. He grabbed the phone and proceeded to order a familiar sized pizza because Victor said he was so hungry he could eat an entire cow. They had a little argument over the toppings when Victor said he wanted pineapple.  
  
"Pretty please?" he begged, trying to snatch the phone from Yuri's hands. "I've never had one with pineapple. I want something exotic."  
  
"That's not exotic! That's gross. Options are pepperoni or ham. You pick."  
  
"You are so mean," he pouted, but Yuri ignored him and returned his attention to the phone.  
  
"Sorry. Yes, we're having a panormous with pepperoni," he explained while pressing his hand against Victor's face to stop him from grabbing the phone.  
  
"Double pepperoni," Victor added, trying to bite Yuri's fingers.  
  
"With double pepperoni," Yuri complied, his knee against Victor's chest to hold him back. "Stop biting me! No, sorry, that wasn't for you. Yes, okay. No, no fries. Yes, thank you, sorry, goodbye."  
  
He hung up and faced Victor. "Are you always like this or do you take breaks or something?"  
  
Victor ignored his question and stretched his arms in Yuri’s direction. "So how long do they take?"  
  
Yuri looked at him with a frown and showed him the phone. "I literally just ended the call. Calm down, my god."  
  
"I can't," he said leaning forward. "I'm hungry," he added with a quick kiss to his lips. "Too hungry."  
  
"Sap," Yuri said rolling his eyes.  
  
"But you love it," he whispered against his ear before turning him over to tickle his belly.  
  
“Noooo. Stop!” Yuri squirmed, but Victor continued relentlessly. “I swear to God if you don’t stop I’m going to bed,” he snapped, trying to sound angry but he was actually smiling.  
  
“Bed, huh? I’ve got one of those.”  
  
Air was kicked out of Yuri’s lungs and he almost chocked. Victor looked at him with concern.  
  
“Sorry, it was a joke. It wasn’t my intention to…”  
  
Yuri looked at him and shook his head, pushing him down to accept his soft kisses. Victor hugged him and they rolled over the couch, things heating up again. They were really going at it when Yuri felt something wet against his left foot and jerked his leg. He looked down only to find Maccachin licking at his toes. He faced Victor and they both burst out in laughter.  
  
“I think I love him,” Yuri said, straightening up and rearranging his glasses over the bridge of his nose.  
  
“Not going to lie, I’m kinda hating him right now,” Victor deadpanned, but he sounded amused.  
  
The dog jumped onto the couch, wagging his tail as he sat down between them. Yuri giggled and got up.  
  
“I’ll be right back,” he announced and headed towards the bathroom, ignoring the tug at the back of his shirt that tried to stop him from going.  
  
He flicked the lights and closed the door, looking at his face in the mirror. His cheeks were subtly pink and his lips red and swollen. His hair was a mess and he looked as if he’d been thoroughly fucked moments ago. However, the most noticeable thing was the amount of little bruises all over his neck. He’d never had hickeys in his whole life and it was a big turn on to feel so marked, taken. Even if that meant he would have to wear turtle necks until they faded away. He smiled and used his hands to form a cup and drink water from the tap. He was in the process of combing his hair with his fingers when he heard the bell ring.  
  
“It’s the pizza?” he shouted still inside the bathroom.  
  
There was no reply and then Victor opened the door without warning. He said it was indeed the pizza boy and that he was dying of starvation, and needed sustenance to live for another second.  
  
“Alright, alright. Let me go get my wallet and I’ll answer the door.” He aimed towards the door but Victor stopped him.  
  
“No, I’ll do it. You’re my guest, I’m inviting you.”  
  
“No way,” Yuri said walking past him.  
  
After that, there was a silent fight while both of them tried to reach the front door by bringing the other down. The fight was more or less balanced until Maccachin joined them and jumped over Yuri, tackling him right away.  
  
Victor took advantage of those moments and sprinted towards the door.  
  
“Traitor!” Yuri scoffed. The dog, unaffected by his words, wagged his tail and licked his own leg.  
  
Before he could stand up, he heard the door closing and Victor crouched by his side holding the pizza box above his head as if it were a trophy. “We are the champioooons, my frieeeends…” he sang purposefully out of tune.  
  
“Stop doing that or the cheese would end up stuck to the box,” Yuri reprimanded. Victor straightened the box immediately and got to his feet, disappearing inside the kitchen.  
  
Yuri grunted and joined him moments after, rubbing his back that was sore from the fall.  
  
“It’s bigger than I expected,” Victor commented, looking with wide eyes at the enormous pizza.  
  
“After all the hassle you caused, you better eat it whole.”  
  
“It’s a bet,” Victor winked and approached a stool to the table. In the end, he resulted to be a wimp who couldn’t handle more than three slices.  
  
“You are such a softy!” Yuri exclaimed, finishing his fourth slice.  
  
“It’s because I drank too much soda,” he said as an excuse.  
  
Yuri rolled his eyes and traced the rising bubbles on the side of his glass with a finger. He was looking at Maccachin with a lost expression so Victor poked his cheek. “Are you okay?”  
  
“Yeah, I was just thinking.”  
  
“It’s good to do that once in a while.”  
  
“Jackass,” Yuri replied. “No, it’s just that… Maccachin looks exactly like my old dog. You know, the one I had back in Japan?”  
  
Victor nodded. “I miss him,” Yuri said after a while. “Sometimes I forgot he’s not around anymore.”  
  
“Let’s toast,” Victor proposed, hoisting up his glass of Pepsi. “Let’s raise our glasses to… uh”  
  
Yuri blushed and chocked a little. “Victor,” he mumbled, hoping Victor wouldn’t hear him, but of course he did.  
  
“To Victor.”  
  
Yuri smiled weakly and raised his glass as well. “To Victor.”  
  
Silence fell around them until Victor said all of a sudden, “I still can't believe you named your dog Victor.”  
  
Yuri looked at him with a puzzle expression, as if deciding whether to laugh or cry. “Are you serious?”  
  
“Yeah, I mean, it’s kind of an honor but still. What would you think if my dog was named Yuri?”  
  
“I’ll be fucking glad. That’s what I would think.”  
  
Victor turned around and rubbed Maccachin’s head. “Did you hear that, Maccachin Yuri Nikiforov?”  
  
Maccachin wagged his tail, ignoring his owner while he kept staring at the crusts of pizza Victor had left over his plate. Yuri smiled and shook his head, a familiar heat spreading all over his chest.  
  
_Victor, do you feel how fast my heart is beating for you?_  
  
_Can you see how happy you make me?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _It started out with a kiss_  
>  How did it end up like this  
> It was only a kiss, it was only a kiss......  
>  
> 
> I wrote this during Christmas. I'm going straight to hell.
> 
> Also, it was my first real 'smut', and it was very hard to write (pun intended). It felt so weird to write this stuff in English, like... should I use cock or dick? Or both? Is penis too formal? Is member too weird? Argh, I hope you enjoyed this D:
> 
> Idk why I wrote that scene about shaving, but if I were a man, shaving my dick would be my biggest worry for some weird reason.
> 
> PS. I've just realized that the word count is now a palindrome (29492) ... So much wow, many words.


	8. Minty

Yuri was in a bad mood. Not angry, just worried and _maybe_ a bit grumpy. Victor had been acting weird during the whole ride, barely talking and shooting him sideways glances whenever he thought Yuri wasn’t looking.

Unfortunately, as was to be expected, it was bringing out Yuri’s worst side. Since he was a kid, he had developed a little—minuscule, actually— tendency to overthink things. As he watched how absorbed Victor was, the double-edged sword started moving, slowly, almost imperceptible.

Why was he so quiet? Had he said something to upset him? Had it been too soon? Maybe buying groceries together was something only couples did, and Victor just wasn’t aiming for that kind of relationship? Yuri flinched as the imaginary blade grazed his skin, the lump in his throat tightening. No. He blinked back some treacherous tears and tugged at his scarf. There had to be a reason. Something else. Maybe he was tired and that was it.

Last night, after eating the pizza they’d stayed up until long past two, watching some stupid chick flick he’d barely followed. Maybe because he was too aware of Victor’s thigh against his own or that sigh-thing he did when he laughed— which was completely adorable, sue him.

Once the credits had rolled, they’d said their goodbyes and went to bed. Yuri could tell Victor wasn’t sleeping, though. He could hear the soft hum of the TV and Victor’s occasional cough, even with the door of his room closed. They had already talked before about his insomnia and the fact that he had blinding headaches because of it. Yuri knew he took pills to try and correct his hectic sleeping patterns, but it seemed as if they didn't work any more. Yuri was still surprised next morning when he came down for breakfast to found an inebriated Victor asleep on the couch with an empty bottle of some expensive liquor still clutched between his numb fingers. He wondered if that was an every-night thing and if he was aware of how dangerous it was too mix pills and alcohol. 

And then he realized he didn’t know Victor at all.

All the time he’d spent around him and yet he had no idea about who his parents were or if he had any friends beyond the other skaters he’d known during his career, or where he’d been to school. He didn’t know if he wanted kids or if he was the type to marry, if he had ever been in love, if he had ever had his heart broken, if it still hurt. Hell, he didn’t even know if he was one of those people who hated dubbed films and preferred to watch them subbed even if that meant missing all the action.

What Yuri actually knew about him— concrete, truthful facts— was dwarfed by everything he didn’t. And now, looking at his pursed lips and his distant eyes, he realized he might never get to know the real Victor.

With that in mind, he barely noticed the bump when the rear right tire bounced as they entered the parking lot. The car slowed down gradually until Victor pulled over and sighed. He leaned forward, gently grabbing his chin, and for a moment Yuri thought he was going to kiss him, but he just smiled and shook his head.

“Why are you brooding?” Victor asked.

“I am not,” Yuri huffed immediately. Unbelievable! The last time he’d checked, he wasn’t the one having a full on sulk.

“Yes, you are. Something is upsetting you. What is it?” Victor pushed, pinching his cheek softly.

Yuri jerked back, moving away from his hand. “Stop it! Why do you care?”

Victor frowned, taking his time before answering. He opened the glove compartment and pulled out a packet of menthol cigarettes that had seen better days. He placed one between his lips and patted himself for a lighter. The flame needed three attempts before igniting and by then, Yuri thought he wasn’t going to answer at all. He was surprised, though. He hadn’t seen Victor smoke in days, and he would have forgotten about that habit of his if it wasn’t for the smell in his clothes. He wondered briefly whether the man had been reluctant to smoke in front of him or just trying to quit. Victor inhaled slowly, taking small, lazy drags and blowing the smoke out of the window. He flicked the cigarette and shrugged, still avoiding eye contact. “I just do. Isn’t that enough? So what is it?” he repeated.

Yuri crossed his arms and looked out of the window. “You’re acting weird,” he mumbled, barely audible. He thought Victor was going to deny it or say he was being overly dramatic, but he just winced and buried his face in his hands.

“I just got a lot on my mind.”

“Oh.” That made sense. “What are you…?”

“I have a proposition,” Victor said. “About us.”

“What kind of proposition?” Yuri frowned. Was he implying what he thought he was implying?

“Look, Yuri. You’ve been helping me a lot recently. I don’t think you know how _much_ you’ve been helping me. I told you I needed company and you covered that and more.” He clacked his tongue, struggling to find the right words. “Before I met you, I was bored, exhausted, I’d lost my path. But you found me, you fixed me, you gave me something to look forward to every day. And I think I owe you. No, I _know_ I owe you. So I’ve been thinking about this a lot, and how to say this subtly, but I guess subtlety it’s not for me." He made a pause, pinching the bridge of his nose hard. "I don’t want to sound like I’m—". He cut himself off with a grunt. “I don’t want to sound like I’m bragging or something. But since you’ve lost your job and I have some… savings? You know, prizes and all. And well, you’re spending a lot of time with me and I thought I could give you something in exchange for that.”

Yuri tilted his head lightly, waiting for the words to sink in. “You mean like payment,” he said in a voice stripped of any emotion as realization hit him.

“Something like that. You set the price. Something to cover your tuition and other things you need,” Victor smiled, oblivious to the pain those words inflicted on Yuri.

“You want to pay me for spending time with you… You think I’m doing this for a reward?” His head filled with clattering, disorienting white noise as the sword penetrated his skin. “That I’m with you for money?”

“Well, not exactly. But I think I'm benefiting, far more than you with our relationship. I just thought it would be a fair deal if—”

“A fair deal? Relationships aren't a business. You don't get to decide which one of us is getting more from this. You don't get to- You think you have to pay for my time?” He looked at him with wide eyes, trying to stop his voice from cracking. “I wasn’t… I wasn’t with you for money! I thought that...”

_I thought that you liked me. That I meant something to you!_

“No, Victor. Not you, too. Please don't…don't p-pity me. I already feel like a failure, I d-don’t need anyone’s charity. I know what this is. I’m not… f-for sale,” he said then, pushing the door open. This had to be the worst day in his whole life. The man he was head over heels for was treating him like some kind of cheap prostitute. “I’m not for sale,” he repeated. His chin was trembling and he felt his lashes heavy with tears. Why was he so weak? He hated that Victor would see him cry, that he would know how much he cared.

And he thought he was going to propose? After what, a month?

He stepped out and slammed the door. It was so embarrassing. He had walked right into the wolf’s mouth, believing in fairy tales and lies and true love. And everything had been just smoke and mirrors.

God, it hurt. Why? How could it hurt so much?

He tried to tell himself that it was just a feeling. It was only on his mind, there was no way for it to physically hurt. Yet it did. The sword was piercing his heart now, and even as he pressed his hands against his chest, he couldn’t find the hilt. He couldn’t pull it out.

He started walking aimlessly, stepping away from the car as fast as he could, while the tears fell down his face. He could barely see, but he didn’t care. He wanted to go. He wanted to be far away where nothing and no one would matter.

His legs stopped working and he lost his balance, but before he could hit the ground, something caught him. He lifted his head and found Victor’s eyes, looking at him worriedly. The pain worsened but it became sweeter. It felt like a pain that was worth suffering.

Yuri refused to look away, even as his lips trembled and his shoulders heaved with emotion, unwilling to back down. His dark lashes brimmed heavy with tears; his hands clenched into shaking fists, in a desperate battle against the grief. A lone tear traced down his cheek, and just like that, the floodgates opened. He wept loud and messy, heaving sobs tearing from his throat, and still he did not look away. Not until the sobs drove him to his knees did his determined gaze fall. Victor fell with him, his arms still wrapped around him.

“God, I’m such an idiot,” Victor said. “I didn’t mean to offend you. I just wanted to help. I promise I wasn't trying to treat you like a—” He stopped and rubbed his thumb over Yuri’s cheek, wiping the tears away. “I’m sorry.”

Yuri cried harder and buried his face in the crook of Victor’s neck so he missed the exact moment when the man unbuttoned his trench coat. He did feel, however, as Victor grabbed his hand to laid it over his chest. Only a thin shirt separated Yuri’s fingers from Victor’s skin, and he gasped as he felt a frenzied hammering against his palm.

“Can you feel it?” Victor asked. “Can you feel how fast it’s beating?”

Yuri raised his head to look at him, puzzled. “Why?”

“This is what happens every time I see you, every time I hold you close. You know what it means?” he asked.

Yuri shook his head lightly. The pain was still there, but he endured it. He felt that, whatever Victor was about to say, it was important.

“I don’t know either,” he said then, and Yuri frowned. “It’s new and I can’t control it. But it feels good. I can feel it everywhere and it makes me want to take care of you and make you happy… and you were so worried about your bills that I thought it would be a good idea. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean it to come out like it did.”

Yuri listened as tears continued to run down his face. He wanted to tell Victor he was a liar. That he didn't believe a single word. That Victor was giving him charity money. But everything Victor had said felt genuine. The stern look in his blue eyes was genuine. The way he held his hand, as if it was made of crystal. And his heart. His heart wouldn’t lie.

Yuri wiped his cheek with the back of his hand and blinked. Victor kissed his forehead sweetly and nuzzled his neck. “I should’ve said that I want to take care of you and make sure you never lack for anything. You’re too important to me. I mean it. I long to spoil you with surprises and gifts and nice things. Does this mean I can’t buy you nice things? Ever?”

Yuri lifted his head, surprised. Ever? What did ‘ever’ mean? What did ‘ever’ mean to someone like Victor? It sounded like a promise, but Yuri knew it wouldn't last. Victor was volatile, he probably couldn't even remember the number of places he'd been to the last few months. How much longer until this little caprice of his became insufficient? Another month? A week?

The only thing he was sure of was that one day he was going to wake up to an empty house. He cursed fate for being so cruel and making him fall in love with someone he couldn't have. So he stayed there, limp in his hands as fingers threaded lightly through his hair, soothing his pain.

“That would be different. I don't care if you buy me things because you want to,” he said.

Victor smiled and cupped his cheeks to kiss him. “Sounds like a deal,” he muttered against his lips.

Yuri nodded. He was actually knee-deep in debts, rejecting such an offer just because of stubbornness would be stupid. Maybe having a pampering sugar daddy wasn’t the most awful situation he could be in.

 

* * *

 

Yuri had never visited the Wal-Mart of Maple Road, so he decided to start his trip with a familiarization of the place by walking round every aisle pushing an empty trolley while Victor wrapped an arm around him. He picked things every now and then, mostly vegetables and fruits.

He ached to eat a real meal, and he really wanted to cook something for Victor. The man was literally two days away from having a heart attack because of all the crap food he’d been consuming lately. No exaggerations.

Some things where kind of expensive, but Yuri grabbed them anyway. After hearing Victor’s words, he imagined they could afford some luxuries. He stock up on emergency chocolate bars and a carton of strawberry ice cream, too. Just in case.

He was telling Victor what he was planning on cooking that night when he noticed that the man was strangely quiet. He turned to face him and saw he was actually a few meters away talking to a woman that was offering free samples of something he supposed, were animal-shaped cookies. They looked nothing like animals, but Victor was fascinated nonetheless.

Yuri was about to call him when he remembered about his earlier conversation with Leo. Trying to be as discreet as possible, he pushed the trolley towards the cosmetics aisle and stopped there. It smelled nice, and Yuri sniffed the mixed scent of lotions, colognes and soaps. He walked with a finger over his lips until he finally spotted what he was looking for. He found packs of 36— and even 144 units, but it seemed a bit too much. He crouched and grabbed a box of 3 units, hoping it was enough.

About the size… well. He’d heard that condoms could stretch to the size of a human leg, so no matter how well hung Victor was, they were going to be okay. He threw the box inside the trolley, already thinking about how embarrassed he was going to be when the cashier grabbed it. He dismissed the thought and focused on the other article he needed to buy, which led him to ponder about other things.

The lubricant section was bright and full of multicolored bottles of all sizes and brands. He grabbed a purple tube and read the instructions. It said it was made from a silicone base, making it ideal for anal sex since it was condom safe and easy to clean. He had no idea what that meant, but sounded like a deal. To him, personal lubricant was like a chain saw or a shotgun. He knew what it was, its functionality, and vaguely how it worked, but if he had one between his hands, he would prefer it to be handled by a more experienced person. He flipped the tube to read bold letters written on top. Apparently, it included some sort of anal relaxant to avoid any pain or discomfort. Yuri sighed in relief at those words. He had been worried about it hurting too much to be enjoyable, but the designers of that thing seemed to have thought about everything.

But then something occurred to him. How did he know for sure that Victor was a top? He might be a bottom as well! And then again, why was he okay with being a bottom anyway?! He felt like he was missing something about the whole thing. It was going to be his first time… wouldn’t it have made more sense for him to be the top?

Although, thinking it better, he didn’t really want to top. He was too inexperienced, and he’d probably do something wrong and end up hurting Victor. It was better to just have him top and then Yuri could figure out how to be okay being on the bottom.

He lifted the lid of the tube and sniffed at its content. It smelled funny, reminding him briefly of camphor until he realized it was probably mint flavored. Weird. Why would people want it to be flavored? _Oh._

He was about to threw it inside the trolley when he felt two hands squeezing his shoulders, causing him to drop the lube to the floor.

He turned around immediately, his face going white. “I didn’t use it, I swear! I was going to buy it.”

He heard a soft laugh and opened his eyes. Mere inches away from him, a short boy with dirty blond hair and pointy canines beamed at him. “Yuri!” the boy exclaimed, hugging him tightly.

“M-Minami? What are you doing here?”

The boy pulled away and shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “My brother is graduating next Thursday, so I came to assist to the ceremony. I’m staying the whole week. My parents are here too. We’re making him a surprise party!” he explained, pointing towards a trolley with chips, several bottles of cola and what seemed to be a box of cake mix.

“Oh, that’s great,” Yuri smiled. “I can’t believe it, you’ve grown so much since the last time I saw you. It’s been… what, two years?”

“And a half,” Minami corrected. He crouched and grabbed the tube Yuri had dropped. “I think that’s yours,” he added, handing him the lube.

Yuri turned red and snatched the thing from Minami’s fingers before the boy could realize what it was. “Thank you,” he mumbled.

“So… you’re dating someone,” Minami said with an impish smile. It wasn’t a question but a statement, and Yuri wanted to die.

“Yeah, kind of. I guess,” he replied, rubbing the back of his neck, wanting to end the conversation as soon as possible.

“Is she pretty?” Minami asked boldly.

Yuri closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. He didn’t want to tell him about his sexuality, but he didn’t want to lie to him either. “It’s a guy, actually.”

“Oh,” he said, looking confused. “I didn’t know that you were…”

“Yeah, I am.”

“Oh,” he repeated. He frowned and shook his head, as if trying to make his mind clearer. His eyes were bright and there was something confusing about his groggy smile.

“Is he pretty?”

Yuri almost dropped the lube again. “Uhm, well yes. He’s quite handsome. Yes.”

“That’s good,” Minami smiled. “I’m glad for you.”

Yuri smiled back and started pulling the trolley. “Uhm, he’s probably waiting for me so… I guess I’ll see you around, Mimmi. Say hi to your parents from my part.”

“W-Wait!” the boy exclaimed, tugging at his coat. “I’ve gotta go too, but would you…? Can I have your phone number? Maybe we can meet up again before I leave.”

“Yeah, sure, why not.”

 

* * *

 

Victor settled the plastic bag with tomatoes over the conveyer and the cashier dropped them over the scale with a boring expression as she chewed on her gum noisily. He stretched his arm to retrieve the last items when his hand came across something he hadn’t put inside the trolley.

He lifted the box and examined it while the cashier looked at him impatiently.

“Are you taking them or not?” asked the woman, rather rudely.

“I don’t—”

“Yes, please,” interrupted Yuri. He grabbed the pack of condoms from Victor’s hands and pushed the lube over the conveyer as well. “That would be all.”

Victor stared at him as if he was facing an alien for the first time in his life.

“You picked that…?”

Yuri wanted to reply with some kind of joke like _‘The right selection! Protect your erection’_ or even _‘Sex is cleaner… with a packaged wiener!’_ , but he blushed fiercely at the prospect and only a cracked ‘maybe’ escaped his lips.

“Are you…?” Victor started.

“…sure?” Yuri finished. _Hell, no._ “I just want to try, okay?”

“Okay,” Victor gulped.

 

* * *

 

Yuri lay on his bed, staring at the ceiling while considering his options. He could close his eyes and go back to sleep, delay it one more night and everything would be the same. He didn’t want that, though.

But what did he _exactly_ want, then?

He wanted to feel good tonight. He wanted to feel Victor’s maddening beating once more. He wanted to be cherished and loved. He wanted everything that could be between them, and then some.

Yuri kicked the blankets off and stood up. He had to do something now, or he never would.

The living room was barely illuminated, but he spotted Victor immediately.

“You're still up?” Yuri asked innocently, feigning surprise as if he hadn’t been smelling Victor’s cigarettes from his room.

Victor jolted at his voice, turning to look at him. He nodded, then focused his gaze back onto the window in front of which he was standing.

“I couldn't sleep,” he explained after a while, although unnecessarily. Yuri hummed, walking farther into the living room at a leisure pace. “How about you?”

Victor sucked in a breath as he felt Yuri standing by his side to peer through the glass and into the darkness waiting for them outside.

“Same.” He didn’t comment on the fact that he had been woken up by a sharp scream coming from Victor’s room, it was implicit, and perhaps it would be better if it stayed that way.

However, tonight Victor felt like sharing. “I had a nightmare,” he whispered. Whether he wanted comfort or was just stating the facts, was unknown to Yuri but he was slightly taken aback by the sudden confession even so.

He glanced briefly at Victor, shifting his weight subtly, stepping an inch closer next to him. And still, proximity increased, Yuri's body was relaxed. There was little to no fear left. He felt comfortable around Victor, and he wondered how long it had been like that. The changes had happened subtly. Somehow, he had stopped seeing him as something unreachable, and now they could talk as equals. Though there had been telling moments in which he had witnessed something within himself click, he hadn't been aware of how far ahead they were already.

“I haven’t had nightmares this strong for a while,” he confessed. “It’s been almost two years already and it doesn’t matter how hard I try to forget everything, it just will not go away. I thought I was used to them. To having nightmares. But they always get worse somehow. And I just don’t know what to do or-” He cut himself off, pressing his lips together as he stubbed out the cigarette against a ceramic ashtray.

“Maybe because forgetting it’s not the way,” Yuri replied.

“Maybe," Victor conceded after a while. "I just… Sometimes I think it will always be like this. That I'll always have these nightmares and these memories, day in day out. And nothing will ever get better.”

The confession hurt Yuri somewhere deep inside of him. He felt his throat thickening, his hands itching to touch Victor, to comfort him.

“It gets better. I promise,” he said, even if he couldn’t be really sure. “You’ve got to hold on to the present and the present alone. Don’t look back at which you cannot change, don’t look forward at which you cannot predict. Just stay here. In the present. With me."

Victor turned to face Yuri, those brown eyes looking at him with so much love he felt like crying. It was too late by now to put a stop to Yuri's feelings regarding him. They were already claiming. And perhaps, it was too late to stop his own feelings as well.

The kiss was sweet. Short, chaste pecks, closed eyes and half smiles. Yuri pulled away just to hug him tightly, pressing his face against his chest. They stayed like that for what felt like hours until Victor realized that Yuri was actually listening to the beating of his heart.

“Are you happy?” Yuri asked, his voice was soft, as if he had been close to falling asleep in his arms. “Like, right now?”

“More than ever,” he admitted. And that 'perhaps' ignited into a 'definitely' as Victor realized he meant every one of those words.

“Can we sleep together tonight?” Yuri asked, then. The question was bold and Victor spotted at least some degree of a double entendre in there somewhere. He raised his eyes, puzzled, but was met with determination.

He nodded, almost imperceptible and Yuri grabbed his hand, intertwining their fingers together. His skin was feverishly hot and Victor couldn’t help but gasp as Yuri started to guide him towards his bedroom. Victor wanted to protest, suggest they should use his bedroom instead since he had a king sized bed… But Yuri silenced his words with a hungry kiss as he pushed the door of the guest’s room open with a swing of his hips.

Soon enough, Victor was lying with his legs spread over Yuri’s bed, looking at him with wide eyes, his lips slightly parted in surprise and arousal.

Yuri leaned over him and kissed a trail down to his collarbone, his hands roaming up his chest to explore every in of skin under his shirt. He slowly started to unfasten the buttons, pushing the fabric apart, to press open-mouthed kisses along the center of his chest. His head moved to the right, hesitant eyes flicking up to look at him, forcing Victor to watch him as he sucked at his nipple.

Victor’s kicked back against the pillow with a soft moan. He was finding it hard to form any coherent thoughts, but with the last remains of strength he had, he rolled over to reverse their positions. He finished taking off his shirt, tossing it to the floor, before lowering his head to kiss Yuri’s neck.

Yuri squirmed and grabbed fistfuls of Victor’s head to hold him in place.

“D-Don’t stop,” he begged.

“I wasn’t planning to,” Victor said, as he continued to lavish Yuri’s skin with his tongue. “You said,” lick, “that you wanted,” kiss, “to try something,” he finished, biting gently on his earlobe. “There are so many things I can do to you.” He moved up to nuzzle his neck. “Tell me what you want me to do.”

“Do whatever you want to me,” Yuri allowed in between pants.

Victor smiled at that, showing his teeth in a way that made Yuri shiver.

“Alright.”

He didn’t even give Yuri time to prepare and just like that, his fingers were already working at the button of his jeans. He slid the zipper down before he took hold of the waistband, pulling the material down passed his thighs, putting Yuri on full display for him. His eyes skimmed over every inch of his body, and then he let his hands travel through the same places his eyes had.

Yuri gasped, grabbing the hem of his shirt. He slipped it up and over his head, tossing it to the side. Victor took in the sight of his bare chest and torso, looking for the first time at that soft extension of pale skin. He wanted to touch him everywhere, but his mind had other ideas. Before he could stop himself, his mouth was sucking on Yuri’s dark nipples, hard and long, biting gently when he saw it proper. Yuri started arching his back and buckling his hips and Victor did the same, grinding softly and meeting him halfway. His erection was already straining against his jeans, but he tried to hold back and keep the fly closed.

He wouldn’t be able to go slow if his dick made contact with Yuri’s skin directly. He ran his finger down the head of Yuri’s cock, enjoying the little moan it caused. He lowered himself down, kissing his inner thighs teasingly. His mouth reached up and up until his tongue was lapping back and forth in slow strokes at Yuri’s most sensitive part. It was pure bliss, the noises he was making were loud and humiliating, but he couldn’t stop them from coming out.

“You should see your face right now,” Victor said, and Yuri could only guess he was redder than a ripe tomato. “Do you trust me?” he asked then.

Yuri nodded because he couldn’t formulate any coherent word, and Victor deemed it enough. He reached over to grab the bottle of lube Yuri had purposefully placed over his nightstand. A shuddering breath resounded in the quiet and dark room and Victor felt Yuri’s body shaking. Despite his nonchalant façade, Victor could see Yuri was nervous… scared maybe, his skin hot and breaths shallow.

“Look at me,” Victor said. Yuri stopped looking at the purple bottle and lifted his eyes to meet Victor's. “I need you to know that you can tell if you feel uncomfortable. I will stop immediately. I won't be upset. Or disappointed. So, promise me you'll tell me.”

Yuri seemed lost in the sound of Victor's voice and a light crease appeared between his eyebrows, as if he were trying to recall what had been said. “Y-yeah, I will. Tell. I will tell. I promise.”

Without any further delay, Victor popped open the cap of the bottle. He poured a generous amount onto his fingers, rubbing them together to coat them thoroughly.

Yuri's chest was heaving with every breath he took, both with desperation and nervousness. How far was he going to take this? He knew he wanted him, but he wasn't sure how much he could take without chickening out. He was nervous too of the fact that he didn’t know if he'd be able to please him in return.

Any doubt that lingered was soon forgotten when he felt the tip of Victor's finger at his entrance. His eyes snapped up to gaze into his partner's, and was met with blown-wide pupils, the soft blue barely visible as arousal turned his eyes into something feral and dark. Yuri let out a sigh and his body relaxed as Victor circled his finger in a slow motion before working it inside of him.

“Remember the promise, okay?” Victor mumbled as he stopped moving, letting Yuri adjust to the sudden invasion.

The boy winced and his eyes closed as he inhaled slowly, trying to get used to the feel of it. He tried not to think about how gross that must be to Victor. Because it was gross, fingers weren't supposed to go in there. He focused on relaxing instead, shifting his weight slightly until the intrusion felt natural. When he gave a small roll of his hips, Victor started to pump his finger slowly. It didn’t take long for it to start feeling good, and he didn’t even notice he was moving down to meet him until he slipped a second finger inside.

“Ow,” he hissed, lifting his head up to look at him.

“It's okay, it's okay,” Victor assured. “We can slow down.”

“D-Don't,” Yuri grunted. “Keep going. I can... take it- DAMMIT IT HURTS,” he yelled as Victor pushed the finger in to the second knuckle.

“Sorry, sorry,” Victor said withdrawing his fingers to coat them with more lube. He kissed his inner thigh before prodding at his entrance again. “I'll go slow.”

The second time felt as weird as the first. It was as if his body was trying to reject the intrusive object, and he honestly couldn't blame it. Or so he told himself until Victor's fingertips brushed against something inside him that made his mouth fall open on a strained moan.

Victor didn’t even give him time to recover before assaulting that spot relentlessly until Yuri was melted into a panting mess, turning his head from one side to the other and shaking uncontrollably.

“V-Victor,” he whimpered, back arching off the bed as he continued to move his fingers, the friction making an obscene squelching sound. “I'm- I—ah! ah!”

Everything he might have wanted to say died on his lips as Victor lowered his hips to press their erections together. Yuri thrust his hips upwards in instinct and he wrapped around his neck, legs crossed at the ankles around his back.

“Is this okay?” Victor asked, punctuating his words with an especially hard thrust of his hips.

Yuri couldn’t even answer him, the only thing leaving his mouth being harsh cries. It was more than okay, it was perfect. It took only a few more thrust before his body went completely rigid, tightening his grip around Victor's waist as he came. His nails scraped against his shoulders, the heels of his feet digging brutally into the small of his back as his body jerked in pleasure.

He collapsed with exhaustion onto the bed, his legs sliding down until they plopped lifelessly to the mattress. He watched through his eyelashes as Victor peeled himself off the bed, padding to the bathroom next door. He came back with a moist towel, wiping Yuri's stomach softy as he tried to control his breathing.

Yuri caught his hands and looked at him intently. Victor stopped his movements and his heart sped up when Yuri started working on the fly of his jeans. Soon, his erection was free, leaking and flushed. Yuri lifted his arms, wrapping them around his back and he pulled down. The moment his cock collided against Yuri’s stomach, he knew he was screwed.

He let out an embarrassingly loud cry and lowered his hips again, searching for the release he so blindly needed.

And again.

And again.

And again.

The act itself was filthy. His movements were hot and aggressive, but there was something especially dark about using him as a tool to get off. Yet he didn’t stop. He couldn’t. He continued to rut against him until white spots appeared on his eyes and the sweet tingling of freedom found him. He came hard and messy, white rivulets coating his and Yuri’s stomach as his arms started shaking, unable to hold him any longer.

He fell over Yuri’s chest, longing to kiss his neck, the skin of which had already warmed and softened by Victor's own exhales. Instead, he brushed his thumb over the soft skin of his throat, feeling his pulse. It was frenzied, and he’s sure his was as well.

With a grunt, he sagged forward, rolling off of Yuri to lay beside him, the boy quickly wrapping an arm around him. They eyes locked and they stayed like that for countless minutes, until their lids became too heavy and the bed too comfortable, and the drifted off to sleep.

 

* * *

 

Victor walks in silence. He’s barefoot but doesn’t question it. It’s just as it was supposed to be, the green grass tickling his toes, the moist dirt sticking to his soles. It feels nice.

He doesn’t know where he’s heading to until he comes across a crossroads. Three options, but he can’t pick any of them. Not yet. If he takes the one on the left, he knows he’ll have to leave everything else behind, for this path is only for new beginnings.

The one on the right doesn’t allure him either. He tries to sneak a quick look at the end of the road, as to make sure he doesn’t want to go there. A cold breeze makes him step back and he shakes his head. Not there, no. He can’t return to that place. Not alone.

And that leaves him with the last alternative. This path is new, no one had ever walked over that soil, and it’s untainted, pure. He gives a hesitant step and sees a boy standing there, waiting for him into the sunlit path. The boy doesn’t speak, nor pushes. He just waits for Victor to make a decision, with a smile on his lips and love on his eyes.

When Victor steps into the path, the boy tilts his head, beaconing him to get closer only with his light. That’s the moment Victor knows he’s picked the right one.

“Follow me,” the boy says with one of his sheepish grins. Victor wraps his fingers into his loose cotton shirt, his heart flooded with relief. He thinks he could have walked through that path himself, but it’s wonderful to have a guide. No, matter how careful you’re, it’s easy to get lost inside one’s heart.

 

 

The morning was cruel and unforgiving.

When Victor opened his eyes, the first thing he felt was Yuri’s hand over his stomach and soft breaths against his nape. It was heaven and Victor wanted for it to last an eternity. He placed his fingers over Yuri’s, and noticed a silver bracelet with a heart shaped pendant around his wrist.

He lowered his hand to play with the chain and it must have tickled Yuri, for he stirred in dreams and pressed closer to Victor.

“It’s a gift,” he mumbled half-asleep.

“It’s pretty,” Victor conceded.

“…’s from my first competition.”

Victor frowned and lifted Yuri’s wrist to see the pendant properly, noticing a small ice skate inside the crystal heart.

“Ice skating?”

“Hmh,” Yuri said as a confirmation.

“You used to ice skate?” Victor asked. Yuri woke up with a gasp at those words. He’d fucked up big time. “Yuri?”

He couldn’t tell if the emotion in Victor's voice was surprise or something else. “Yes,” he whispered.

Victor didn’t reply, and Yuri wanted to believe he had simply fallen asleep again, that he wasn’t seething in silence. The line they had implicitly drawn around the subject had been crossed. He would have to tell the truth. And he wanted to. He wanted to be honest, stop holding his tongue around him. He wanted to talk about the past, about their passions. Skating had been and still was almost everything Victor was. Why deny it? It went against Yuri’s nature to deceive. Lies were the enemies of trust, and trust was an essential part of lasting love.

“You never told me,” Victor said then. It wasn’t a reproach, just a statement.

“I had to drop it when I came here. It’s not important.”

He tried to delay it. Why now? They were such at ease, why bring back painful memories?

But Victor turned around, locking their eyes together. “Would you show me?” he said in a hoarse whisper. “If I asked you to, would you go ice skating with me?”

**END OF PART I**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, the slow build is finished and finally we tasted at least a bit of that sugar-daddy-thing. More to come.
> 
> Also, I'm taking a few days to work on [Our Yesterday's Dreams](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8914117/chapters/20419819)  
> (another YOI fic) before starting with the second part of this story. I've been neglecting OYD for too long.
> 
> Next on Synchronized Hearts! *voice from tv commercials*  
> We'll know what happened to Victor and why did he quit on skating.


	9. Icy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello my patient readers~! Whoa, it's really been a month??? Let me start off by saying that I struggled _a lot_ with this chapter. Not only did I have to rewrite the whole thing thrice, but I also had a problem with my eyes and had to stay away from the pc for a while. [Inserts more excuses here that I’m too lazy to write] 
> 
> Thing is, this version is much more longer than what I intended, so hopefully that makes up for the wait?
> 
> Anyhoo… enjoy, my little pork cutlet bowls~!

Victor stepped onto the ice feeling soft fingers threaded around his. It was an empowering feeling. The two of them, together. Invincible.

 

_“… and now competing on behalf of Russia on their second Grand Prix Final together, we welcome to the ice to the last pair, Mila Babicheva and Victor Nikiforov!”_

 

He glided smoothly, feeling the ice in wide, graceful circles before coming to a stop in the center of the rink. He tightened his grip on Mila’s hand and she reciprocated with a soft squeeze of her own.

He was awfully nervous even if he wouldn’t admit it out loud. But it was a good kind of nervousness. The kind that pushed him to try his best, to succeed, to excel.

 

_“When they won their world title last year, they beat the defending champs, so they have lots of eyes on them now.”_

_“I wouldn’t have said it any different, especially after their performance at the last Winter Olympics, in Sochi. They surely surprised us, despite both of them being so young.”_

 

Victor raised their threaded hands and bowed his head to the crowd. People of all around the world cheered with joy and excitement, flapping their banners and trying to get noticed. He turned around and looked at Mila. She was smiling. He smiled too.

 

_“That’s one more thing that makes this pair so promising. If memory serves me right, Mila was only 17 when they won their title last season.”_

_“That’s correct. Victor is 21 now, but Mila has just turned 18. We’ve already seen her as a single skater in 2012 where she placed third among the best of the best in the junior category, but now, after two years, her technique has changed completely.”_

 

The lights were turned off and the rink remained illuminated only by a dim glow. There was a high pitched whistle, and the sound echoed through the vaulted ceiling like a herald announcing the Royal Entry. Without further delay, both Victor and Mila got into their starting position. With twin scratches and a thud, their ankles were crossed and their arms spread wide.

After that, only silence lingered in the air, occasionally broken by whispers quickly shushed. The eagerness could almost be savored as the crowd kept their breath hostage in anticipation.

 

_“Their short program will be to the song ‘Domino’ by Tony Martin. A bold choice, if I might say. Maybe too powerful. An all-time classic.”_

_“Their theme this season is magic. They said the greatest secrets are hidden in the most unlikely places and, as they announced in their last press conference, the main purpose of their program is to make us believe in the impossible.”_

 

A cornet let out an unexpected roar that got smoother and smoother as it settled a rhythm with tambourines that recreated a circus-like atmosphere. Mila lowered her arm and Victor mimicked her while both of them got in character. They were no longer a pair of skaters, but a magician and his assistant. What they were about to perform was so much more than a simple program. It was a show, an illusion.

 

_“The music gets your attention right away. It’s an arrangement by Ketty Abelashvili, the famous Georgian composer.”_

 

**_« Domino, Domino, you're an angel that heaven has sent me… »_ **

Mila glided cockily by his side and winked as Victor prepared himself for the first trick. She spun like a ballerina trying to draw all the attention to her arms, and her legs, and the feathers flying freely from her costume as she danced. The audience bought it completely. They were enthralled by such a graceful display, mesmerized by her wild limbs that moved frenzied but at the same time in organized synchrony.

_**« Domino, Domino, you're a devil designed to torment me… »** _

No one was focused on Victor as he skated around her, faking to be captivated by her wildness as well.

No one was looking at him closely enough to spot that moment he took advantage of to retrieve the first object from his sleeve.

 

_“Right from the start you can already see the power in their skating.”_

 

It was just a second, and… there it was. Victor offered Mila a red tulip that came out of thin air and the audience was mildly surprised. It was unexpected but at the same time, an old trick. Everyone realized immediately that Victor had been hiding the flower inside his sleeve, and the stunt lost some of its effectiveness.

It was a nice touch, though.

Now, mostly out of spite, the audience started paying closer attention. They wouldn’t be fooled again. They would totally see the next trick coming.

_**« When your heart must know that I love you so… »** _

Victor approached Mila, and fell on one knee to the ground, reaching up, imploring for her to accept his offer. But she was ruthless. She swatted his hand away and his fingers let go of the stem.

He stretched his arm as if trying to catch the flower before it could hit the ground, but as his fingertips grazed the crimson petals… it vanished.

 

_“What? Did they just…?”_

 

The crowd gasped and then clapped. Some of them tried to think of places where he could be hiding the tulip, some of them decided to let it go and just enjoy the show.

Victor got up and swayed his hips holding his breath as the cornet blared again. He took Mila’s hand, but she pretended to look away.

_**« Tell me why, tell me why, why do you make me cry, Domino… »** _

He faked a pout and grabbed her waist in order to lift her off the ice.

 

_“Triple twist, usually a strong element for them. Here we go…”_

 

He threw her to the air and she whirled with precision before gravity reminded her she belonged to the ground. She fell over Victor’s awaiting arms and embraced him.

 

_“Mila was little shaky in that landing but he caught her well on the hips. Clean catch.”_

 

They tore apart, circling the rink in mirrored motion before joining again in the center, linking their hands.

**_« Just one look in your eyes and I melt with desire… »_ **

She lifted her chin in feigned arrogance, but Victor grabbed her waist without hesitation and she was once more in the air.

 

_“Their choreography is very rich… Here comes her throw triple loop, she takes off and… very solid. Beautiful landing. One arm raised. That will give her extra points for the added difficulty.”_

 

_**« Just the touch of your hands and I burst into fire… »** _

Victor tried not to think, he shouldn’t think. But his mind reeled as he pondered over the possible results. They had the surprise element that was the magic tricks. That would certainly skyrocket their presentation score. And their steps sequence was good too. He was worried about the jumps, though.

Against his will, he started to mentally sum-up their points. They first had 13.6 and then 8.5… and 4.3… That was barely above 26. The throw jump came up good, but that twist lift from the beginning had been a little flawed. Perhaps with their spin combination… that gave a total of-

_**« And it scares me that tomorrow someone else may take my place… »** _

Mila squeezed his hand and he lost his train of thought. He forgot about the score, about the failed twist lift, about _everything_.

 

_“They are skating beautifully. Look how relaxed Mila looks.”_

 

**_« And my whole world fills with music when I'm lost in your embrace… »_ **

Victor looked at his partner and there was no greater feeling than the freedom running through his veins and expanding his lungs as he spun and spun, preparing himself for what was yet to come.

 

_“Here comes their first quad, it’s a lutz with a backwards entrance.”_

 

He closed his eyes and… _let go_. Everything just melted away in a fast blur… nothing else mattered but the sharp tightening of his chest as his feet left the ground and the power thrumming through his body as he spun in the air, unbounded by gravity, powerful and free, weightless until the air stopped cradling him. Until he was told that no, he wasn’t a bird, that his wings were imaginary and the freedom he felt was because he was exactly where he wanted to be.

The gravity returned with a drop in his stomach, and _down down down_ he went, and the world cleared up again from the lack of restrictions back into shapes and lines and colors, sights now only faintly familiar to the edge of his consciousness.

A sharp sound of skate on ice snapped him back once more to reality.

 

_“Perfect landing, perfect synch.”_

_“They enter the second half of their program with a side by side combination-” Scratch, clash! “-Triple axel…” Scratch, clash! “…triple toe loop. Wonderfully executed.”_

 

The cornet blared for a third time and it was hard not to lose himself into the music. Breath, breath, Victor had to remind himself. He caressed Mila’s back smoothly as he circled around her, becoming one with the ice. He held her waist as they executed an arabesque spiral. And…

 

“Flying camel spin. And we jump into the steps sequence.”

 

Victor spread his arms as if they were wings and he felt Mila doing the same by his side as they arched their way into a layback Ina Bauer.

The lyrics died as the cornets and trombones got louder. The climax of their program was approaching at vertiginous speed.

That. That was his favorite part. He had memorized every single note of the piece, but he had always had a soft spot for orchestral music. The melody was as much a part of his body as his skates were. Just like Yakov had told him, Victor made it a part of his very soul. He spun as if his life depended on it, as graceful as possible, _fast faster fast fast fast_ , his mind racing, urging him forward. There were no wasted movements; a mating dance aimed to no one in particular and to everyone at the same time. A ritual that somewhere along the way turned into a command. _Look at me_ , it said. _Watch me win the gold medal. Watch me be the best._

 

_“Up next is the axel lasso lift.”_

 

It was time for their third trick. The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper, and they were about to show it.

People could see it. A real enchantment had been casted upon them. Perhaps it didn’t sparkle, perhaps there was no magic wand, but it certainly was in the air, copious and lingering in the madness of their waltz.

It was there, in the midst of a dance that was art coming to life, that magic still flowed rampant and wild through the world. It had been contained for so long within the sights, and it was begging to be freed. Although, “contained” seemed like the wrong word for that kind of magic. It was something that couldn’t be caged, only tamed, never enslaved.

Baffling, unintentional, human magic.

Victor bowed princely at the same time he retrieved a piece of cloth from his back pocket. Their circled one around the other until Mila stopped in front of him.

_**« Domino, Domino, won't you tell me you'll never desert me…? »** _

With military precision, he proceeded to secure the blindfold, covering her eyes. It fit snuggly over her bun, something they hadn’t thought of while rehearsing. There was a delay as he struggled with the sneaky pieces of velcro, but Mila covered that by smoothing down her fringe with a flick of her wrists.

Once the blindfold was firmly fixed, Mila turned her head first to the right, then to the left, as if to prove she couldn’t see. Under the black fabric, she could only perceive a myriad of purple and blue hues. Without her sight, her mind was quickly to compensate, so it all became about sounds.

She kept up with a choreography she knew by heart. She didn’t need her eyes, for she had her passion, and that was enough.

_**« Domino, Domino, if you stay I don’t care how you hurt me… »** _

They threaded hands, dancing across the ice, owning the rink like it belonged to them. Because for as long as the song lasted, it did. It was _their_ moment, and the audience exploited every second of it, unable to look away.

Mila sped up until she felt she was in front of Victor, and he took her other hand. After a second, the ground was gone.

 

_“He’s lifted her…”_

 

The moment her knee hit the back of Victor’s head, she knew something was wrong. She wasn’t supposed to… But then Victor let go of her left hand, and she felt no longer safe because the grip felt off. And…

 

_“One hand…”_

 

Yes. Something was wrong. Victor felt the exact moment when he lost control over the lift. Mila’s body was leaning forward in a way it shouldn’t be, and the weight was badly distributed. He tried to rearrange his grip by using his other hand, but it was too late. He tripped as he rotated and everything went black.

**_« Fate has made you so, you can't change, I know… »_ **

 

_“Oh …”_

 

There was a horrible thud. _Horrible_. Despite all the noise the crowd was making, that thud was the only sound in the arena Victor heard.

 

_“He caught and edge and lost his balance. He dropped her…”_

 

He fell to his knees in pain, suddenly alert. He crawled on all fours, approaching Mila, who lay still over the ice like a broken doll. The blindfold was still covering her eyes, so he couldn’t see if she was conscious or not. He needed to see it himself. He needed to see her eyes.

**_« You can't change, I know… »_ **

He lifted the fabric, but before he could unveil her face, something else caught his attention. His fingers were wet, slick with fresh blood.

Under the dim spotlights, it barely shone red. Instead, it was almost sickly black.

_**« You can’t change, though you try… »** _

 

Why blood? Whose blood was it?

 

_“Their coach Yakov Feltsman quickly approaches them. The medical staff also making their way out onto the ice.”_

 

Why weren’t they stopping the music?

 

_“Stéphane, we bluff about how dangerous this sport is, but until you see something like that… it really doesn’t hit home.”_

 

Victor scooted closer to his friend and pain attacked him like a sudden squall out at sea. Air was kicked out of his lungs as he gripped his right thigh. What felt like thousands of knives and needles pinched and slashed him with absolute brutality.

He looked down, wide eyed, and was surprised to see blood pooling around him.

**_« But then neither can I, Domino… »_ **

 

_“This is absolutely the most helpless feeling you can have, as a pair skater. When you drop your partner like that.”_

 

Mila had probably hit him with her blades before falling. It didn’t matter. Not now. Ignoring his pain, he lifted the blindfold with shaking hands and his lips quivered, his eyes fixed over her closed lids.

Why wasn’t she moving?

 

_“And right now they have to do the right thing and… not move her.”_

 

Why wasn’t she moving?

Yakov appeared by his side, and gently shoved him away. A man in scrubs grabbed his arm, calling his name. He was helped into a stretcher, despite his struggle. He didn’t need medical attention, he was fine. But Mila…

 

_“That… was a **very** dramatic fall.” _

 

He was forced away from her. The last thing he saw was her thin legs, bent at unnatural angles as a puppet whose strings had been cut.

 

Why wasn’t she…?

 

_“This is going to be a huge, huge setback for this team.”_

 

He was never skating again. Ever.

Why wasn’t…?

 

The end of the song was over them, and a lonely cello cried its final notes in agony.

 

_**« Domino, Domino, nothing matters if I have you. »** _

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

Victor stepped onto the ice feeling warm fingers threaded around his. It was soothing and serene and he wanted for it to last forever and then some.

The trepidation was still there, though. Two years ago, a monster had been born inside him, slowly eating him, numbing his mind, making his heart colder.

No matter what, he couldn’t kill it. Because monsters are fearless. Monsters think they are superior and can't be killed. They only grow stronger, never weaker.

Stepping into the ice was like pointing a gun right at the monster’s face. Was he ready to shoot? Was he ready to harm something that was embedded in his sole core?

He could never move forward without conquering those inner demons. He would just be stuck in the same place forever in a timeless loop of self-destruction. Wasting his life in the process.

He’d been trying to keep those thoughts away for long enough, developing bad habits that slowly destroyed his brain. It was time to stop.

He had something to strove for, now. He had someone that could save him.

He looked at the hand that was squeezing his, and then at the owner of said hand. He was welcomed with kind brown eyes.

“You ready?” Yuri asked.

Was he?

His eyes dropped to the smooth surface in front of him.

On that cold December morning, the Lake St Clair was as flat as any mirror. It lay without a ripple in the silver-blue water as if time itself had been frozen. From the tall pines around the edge came not a sound, no movement of branches, no birds calling. Victor had expected to see at least some other students enjoying their winter break, but apparently they were the only creatures dumb enough to venture anywhere near a frozen lake with an upcoming storm.

Victor exhaled slowly and nodded.

The frost settled over the edge of the lake crunched under his feet. The first step was the worst. His legs felt like they were made of iron, heavy and immovable, every muscle straining and tense. He took another one.

Despite the familiarity, the skates felt foreign on his feet. The wide expanse of white awaited him, happy to greet once more its long-lost son.

Cold sweat pricked at his back. Phantom eyes were staring at him, even though the only things he could see were Yuri himself and a wooden hut a few feet away from the shore that, apparently, rented fishing rods when the weather allowed it. Now it was closed and covered in snow.

He forced himself to move forward, gliding through the ice to gain speed.

It was all in his head.

The pain of his leg wasn’t real.

He took another deep breath and let it out slowly. He could do it.

In a delirious moment of consciousness he realized there was a high possibility that his skating could be saved. What were two missing seasons after a whole life of training? He could catch up. He could return to skating and competing and everything would be normal again. No more hiding and mourning. Only the ice and him.

He let go of Yuri’s hand like a bird abandoning its nest. Clamping down on his thoughts, he took off with his left side outer edge, stepped into the jump with his right, and propelled himself into the air. It wasn’t enough, he realized. Not enough height. As he crossed his left foot over his right, a sharp pain shot up his right thigh. His leg went numb, the muscle sore and tight and Victor realized with horror that he wasn’t going to be able to land on his right. Not like this.

He could barely hear Yuri’s shout as his skate slipped over the ice with a resounding clack, tipping over the far right way too much, and then he tumbled, the world spinning in a fuss of white and panic and the red sky with black clouds that matched his thoughts. Victor felt the burn on his cheeks before his entire body landed on the ice, his disappointed face looking at him from the mirror under his feet. The pain in his leg was deep within the bone clawing its way up his thigh to his hip, and then Victor slid and slid and slid in an endless spiral until Yuri caught him with hesitant hands.

“V-Victor…!”

Everything stopped spinning.

“It’s okay. I got you,” Yuri said gently. Victor smacked his hands away, harsher than he’d have wanted.

“I can get up by myself,” he explained, trying to get to his feet even though his entire right leg felt like sharp knives puncturing his flesh into the bones. Yuri caught him before he fell again. “You don’t have to help me,” he insisted. How humiliating, a skater that couldn’t skate.

“Let’s take a break,” Yuri said, and Victor didn’t say another word as they got off the ice.

He couldn’t skate. Not like this. He stopped in front of his pearl-gray Maserati and crouched immediately to untie his skates with a hand splayed over the hood. He struggled with the laces, and then gave up with a kick. He didn’t know why he was so upset. He hadn’t skated in years, what was he expecting? Yeah, he might’ve been the best of the world, but that was clearly over now.

There was a creak behind him and Victor turned around fast enough to catch a glimpse of Yuri sliding onto the car. He wiggled up to plant himself in the crook between windshield and hood, leaning his back against the glass.

“Come on,” he waved at Victor, and patted at the polished surface beside him.

Far less gracefully, maybe because his leg was still _being a bitch_ , Victor joined him. Despite the engine being off for about half an hour, the hood was boiling hot. It didn’t feel so bad in the chilly morning air, though. Once he had settled in, he knew he wouldn’t be going anywhere for a while.

“Okay, so…” Yuri started with a sigh that could only be described as a preamble. “I don’t know what to say, but I see now that this was a bad idea and I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize,” Victor snapped. “It’s not your fault I’m crippled.”

“You’re not crippled,” Yuri retorted immediately, shooting him a confused glance.

“Sure, whatever.” Victor pulled out a slim black case from his pocket and pulled out one of his menthol cigarettes. As he held it between his lips and bent down to light it in cupped hands, he mumbled, “I’ve been telling myself that for two years now, but not anymore.”

Yuri didn’t answer. He had no idea what he was talking about. He’d never been good at context clues, at following inferences. Victor sucked on his cigarette and brought his head up. He reclined his back against the glass and blew smoke out of his thin lips. “That doesn’t make sense to you, I know,” he said suddenly, as if remembering he wasn’t alone.

No, it didn’t. Yuri waited patiently for him to continue.

“I guess I’m angry and upset because not-so-deep inside me, I was still hopeful. But it was in vain. And now, all at once I learned that I’m not worth what I am currently. And that fucking hurts.” As Victor spoke, he fidgeted, but not in a nervous way. He pulled his long legs in to cross them loosely, and leaned forward into the pose. Everything he did, every way he moved, it complemented his intention. He was choosing what he said carefully, and slowly, everything started to make sense.

“You wanted to come back,” Yuri said quietly.

Victor looked up at him sharply. No other muscle on his face moved, he just fixed his big, blue eyes at him and glared. Yuri didn’t dare to avert his eyes though there was a warning edge on the firm stretch of his lips.

A disarming expression rippled over Victor’s face, then, and everything about him went stunningly unguarded for just a second before he dragged off his cigarette again and started to talk. “That night, two years ago, I promised myself I wouldn’t skate again. Ever. If she couldn’t skate, why would I? How could I? After what I did to her…”

Victor chuckled humorlessly and shook his head out of the memory. “When we were younger, Mila and I, she used to say we would skate together until we were sixty or our hair grew grey, whatever happened first. I remember telling her that my hair was already grey. So she changed her mind and said okay, until I grew bald, then.” He took another drag and held the smoke, maybe in an attempt to hold his next words as well. “I told her I would skate with her until the day her legs grew weak and she couldn’t stand up anymore. Life has a funny way of making your wishes come true.” He paused for several moments, a wan half-smile just barely visible on the shadowed side of his face. “There’s a lot of new machines and shit, though. I read about this man that was completely paralyzed and they put these things inside his head that send signals back to his brain to reactivate some voluntary movement and sensitivity. He died a couple of months later, a car crash, I think.” He flicked the ashes. “But it worked, so who knows. Fucking life.”

“And now this… This shows me it’s really over. If I can’t recover after a stupid nick, how could she recover from that? It was stupid from me to think everything could be back to normal. She’ll never forgive me.”

Yuri found himself lost at thought after the long monologue. But that final phrase made him frown. “I’m sure she doesn’t blame you,” he said, thought he couldn’t be sure. “It was an accident.”

“It was my fault. I _dropped_ her. And that’s what makes me so angry. She was my best friend, she still is, with her I felt loved for the first time… after what happened to my parents. Like, it sits in my stomach and gets me so _angry_ , Yuri. You have no idea, because I can still feel—”

He stopped mid-sentence, clutched his face, and growled. He was sick of showing emotions, of coming close enough to make it obvious he had them. “I haven’t called her ever since. I don’t know if I could bear to hear her voice. So I decided not to think about it. But you can’t simply push your thoughts away right?” He shook his head, answering his own question. “Everywhere I went, someone would recognize them. And right after asking for a sign, they would ask about her. Good fucking luck avoiding the subject.” He tilted his face and locked eyes with Yuri. “You know, you were the first one that didn’t do that. You didn’t ask about her.”

“Y-Yeah… well, I thought it was something you wouldn’t want to discuss… with a stranger,” he stuttered.

Victor nodded in approval. “You’re a good kid,” he muttered, and Yuri wasn’t sure if he was talking to him or just thinking out loud. “When I moved here, things went by smoothly. I didn’t think much of it. I mean, I had something to work for, you know?” Yuri was lost again, but he nodded. “It never happened that way. And then, I woke up one day and I had hope, if I could just get good enough…”

Yuri felt the story building up to its conclusion, and for some reason, he already knew it wouldn’t be a good one. “I don’t know what changed, but I thought that maybe… There was something… still is… something… I had to try, didn’t I?”

Yuri braced himself. Intuition was something he hadn’t been born with, but he’d learned to read Victor. His eyes slid closed before Victor even said the words. “I thought I could escape _this place_. Return to Russia. Get my life back.”

Yuri nodded and looked away, not trusting his emotions to stay at bay. If he started crying, he would be beyond mortified. He’d known it all along. He knew that sometimes they weren’t on the same page, but now he was seeing they were on different books altogether. Yuri couldn’t understand what Victor was going through, because he’d never been there, but the depth and terrible sound of that chuckle made the emotion come alive.

Victor sighed and simply opened his mouth to let a hazy plume of smoke out of his mouth. “What a fucking joke, I can’t even land a simple.”

Yuri’s heart was hurting for him, because now he understood he was sitting next to a very sad man. He watched his face go cold again, watched him firm up his jaw as he tried to put the mask back on as tightly as it would go. Not knowing what else to do, Yuri let his fingers inch over until they covered Victor’s.

Victor looked down at their hands. Without warning, he leaned in and tilted his head, crashing their mouths before Yuri could do as much as gasp. Victor’s lips clamped onto Yuri’s before he knew what was going on. Without a word, the skater fumbled to smash his cigarette out, and refused to let go of Yuri’s mouth as he wounded his arms around him. There was aggressiveness in his movements, something Yuri had never felt, nor expected. But then again, they’d been touching a shitty topic. Yuri tried to mirror that strange energy the best he could, pressing his mouth harder and tightening his fingers on strands of graying hair. He tasted smoke as Victor deepened the kiss while breathing hard and rough against their joined lips. He was angry, but not at Yuri. At life?

When the kiss finally ended, it was only because Victor broke it to catch his breath. He lay back against the windshield and looked away from Yuri as if nothing had happened, lost in thought, probably trying to find other things to mourn over. Or perhaps he wasn't thinking at all, but instead simply taken by the endless sea of red that silently rocked above his head, slowly turning purple, flawed only by feisty clouds tired of swirling around.

“Hey,” he said out of nowhere, after what felt like a year of silence. Yuri almost slipped off the car.

“Y-yeah…?”

Victor lit another cigarette and puffed a few times before speaking again.

“You know… maybe I’m not supposed to leave this place. Maybe I’m supposed to stay.”

Little clouds of smoke flowed from his lips and melted with the growing darkness.

“Okay,” Yuri whispered then. He raised his head momentarily, to distract himself. His eyes found the dusky sky. Cawing birds flew over their heads, forming a V as they traveled west. He watched them until they became a tiny black dot and disappeared. They must be returning to their nest to shelter themselves from the storm.

He didn’t want to go home, not yet. He knew that much. “Do you wanna just… stay out here for a while?” he asked.

Victor was staring at his dangling feet. The hood of the car was already cold. “Yeah. That’s good. Yeah,” he repeated after a while.

They stretched back on the long hood of his car. Victor’s eyes were watery, Yuri noticed. Maybe it was because of the smoke, or the chilly air. Or maybe not.

He reached for his hand again, lacing their fingers together. Victor was staring at the sky, long neck and soft jaw in stunning profile.

His lips quivered, and Yuri _had_ to say something.

“It’s okay,” he said quietly, and squeezed his hand. Victor didn’t pull it away.

They stayed there until drops started hitting the car. The sky was crying its heart out.

 

* * *

 

The windscreen weeper swooshed with the precision of a metronome. _Swoosh, woosh, swoosh, woosh, swoosh…_

Yuri couldn’t see anything through the condensation of the passenger window. He drew a smiley face and then wiped it with his sleeve. He was in a good mood. Happy. Almost lulled to sleep by the warmness of the car and the rocking movement. He craned his neck and looked at Victor.

There was a crease between his brows, and Yuri wanted to smooth it with his fingers. His eyes lowered to the man stern expression, something he always did while driving.

They were riding smoothly, mostly in silence. Not because they didn't have anything to say but because the radio was on, and given that they were both soft spoken individuals neither of them desired to raise their voice.

“What,” Victor asked, realizing that Yuri had been staring at him. He took his eyes off the road for a second to shot him a sideways glance.

“Can we pick up something to eat on our way back?” Yuri made up.

“Yeah, sure. I was thinking the same. Where?” Victor replied, stopping at the red lights. Yuri bumped his head into the side window.

“Dunno.”

It was almost six in the afternoon, and they were both famished, so they ended up grabbing McDonald’s at a drive thru and eating inside the car.

Yuri pinched at his fries while Victor tore open the plastic bag of his Happy Meal toy.

“Why did you choose a Happy Meal?” he asked. “They are _tiny_. You’ll be hungry within an hour.”

Victor wasn’t listening to him and instead, was squeezing the tummy of his plush.

“Cute,” he mumbled, a Mona Lisa smile stretching his lips.

“I mean, I just don’t get it,” Yuri continued. “Chewbacca didn’t even get a cameo in Rogue One, why does he even have a toy?”

“Chew- what…?” Victor asked.

Yuri frowned. “You don’t know his name…? Have you ever seen Star Wars, at least?”

“Not really.”

“Then why do you want a Star Wars toy?” he said, exasperated.

“It reminds me of Maccachin,” Victor replied, still squeezing the brown plush as his food got cold over his lap.

“ . . . ”

Victor unwrapped his burger and finished it in two bites. He looked at his small bag of fries, noticing that Yuri’s McDouble was bigger.

“I’m hungry.”

“ _No._ ”

Victor crossed his arms like a kid whose parents refused to buy a chocolate. Yuri groaned. He couldn’t say no to that face.

“Okay, you win.” He split his burger in two and handed Victor half of it. “You’re like five.”

Victor smiled and Yuri wondered if the man had taken that as a compliment.

He shook his head and reclined in his seat. The sound of the rain cradled him to sleep. He didn’t dream.

Victor woke him up with a nudge when he pulled over in front of his house. He collected his keys from the ignition and stepped out as Yuri stirred.

It was still raining, and by the time they were finally inside, their clothes were drenched. None of them wanted to stain the wooden floor, so they kicked they shoes off by the door and started undressing.

When they were down to their underwear, they seemed to finally realize what they were doing. Yuri snickered in nervousness, trying to hide his blush.

Eager to move past any awkwardness, he started talking before Victor could say anything. “I… I’ll go to my room.”

“Yeah, I’ll go grab a towel too,” Victor said, aiming towards the stairs. Yuri walked behind him and started climbing the stairs as well, after all, his room was next to Victor’s.

That’s when he noticed his happy mistake. The view of Victor walking ahead of him in drenched white boxers was something he didn’t necessarily want to miss. What a miracle. God says Hallelujah.

He locked himself inside his room and started drying his scalding skin, imagining what was probably happening in the next room, with only one wall separating them.

He put on a new pair of boxers and PJ pants, trying to ignore the wild beating of his heart, everything in less than a minute. He exited his room to brush his teeth and bumped in the hallway into Victor… who looked pretty much the same. Except he had upgraded his underwear to a set of dangerous-looking black speedos.

“Uh…” Yuri mumbled, trying his best to look upward. “Sorry I was just…uh. Yeah.”

The speedos were placed low on his hips, showing a perfect V worth to be displayed on underwear commercials. He gulped.

Well, fuck, he wasn’t a virgin bride during the fifties, nor did he have a chastity ring. He was going for it.

But before he could react, Victor was on him, flattening him against the bathroom door and making it slam shut in the process. Yuri’s eyes flew open and he sucked in a breath through his nose. Just like he had done on the hood of his car, he just went with it, mirroring his energy and power.

His hand found Victor’s but the man pulled it away after just a moment, instead placing it on the small of his back, lifting Yuri’s cotton shirt. Yuri didn’t say a word and just waited until the shirt hit the floor. Victor nip softly at his bottom lip and Yuri thought it was a good moment to open his mouth and deepen the kiss, but Victor pulled back just enough in a silent, overt tease.

Yuri tried it again, and again Victor dodged him. They kept playing like that. Every time, Yuri’s heart swelled with even more excitement, his blood surging. Finally he just tightened his hand on Victor’s head and pulled him closer, feeling only slight resistance before their lips crushed together again and they gasped relief into each other’s mouths.

They started swaying in a game of pulling and pushing, fighting for dominance in a contest neither of them wanted to lose.

They crashed over Yuri’s bed, Victor on his back and Yuri lying atop of him.

After rolling a bit, Yuri ended up propping himself on his elbows as Victor looked at him from above. So much for dominance.

They resumed kissing and touching and tugging at clothes until Yuri found himself naked over the bed, alone, as Victor stood up in front of him.

He pressed his lips to muffle a whine when Victor rolled his hips up and pushed his undergarments completely down. He swallowed. His mouth was too dry, but at the same time he felt as if he were salivating like a hungry wolf.

Thinking was not his first priority as Victor stepped out of his clothes and moved up onto the bed to crawl over him. Breathing was something that seemed suddenly difficult, too.

Victor kissed his neck and his cheeks with soft pecks, but then he stopped abruptly and lifted himself up, his hands resting on each side of Yuri’s face. Slowly, their looked at each other, blue eyes searching brown ones for any evidence that he might want to stop this. He found none, yet he decided to take confirmation.

“Do you really want to…?” The words died in his throat, but they had been clear enough.

He’d figured long ago that Yuri was a virgin, he wouldn’t want him to do something he would regret later. They’ve known each other for barely a month, but they had gone through a lot, had so many moments. And yet… His first time…

“Do you?”

Yuri’s question caught him off guard. No one ever had questioned him on his opinion. Not as a kid, neither as a professional. Always taking orders from his parents and his coaches and tutors, but never, ever, getting a say in the matter. Having an option felt completely strange, a whole new concept.

He found himself free in Yuri’s presence.

“Yes,” he replied. Certain. Without a hint of a doubt. Yuri nodded and a shy smile lit his face.

Victor kissed him again and again until it was too much and not enough.

His lips travelled south, fingers caressing untouched skin, hairless everywhere. A hushed moan told him his actions were appreciated.

He closed his eyes in pleasure, his tongue tasting things he’d never tasted before.

Once he started, he made sure not an inch was left uncherished.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *waits for a slap to the face* 
> 
> When you live for the drama and you can’t stop……… Yeah, sorry about that. I just happen to love making my characters suffer. 
> 
> Not sorry about the ending though. Hue hue hue. 
> 
> On a more colorful note, as the lazy shit I am, when I started writing this fic, it was a half-baked idea. Now that I know where I’m going with this, I rewrote some of the scenes from the first chapters. Nothing major, just little changes here and there to make it flow more smoothly, so you don’t need to read it again because it doesn’t really affect the plot. I'm mostly adding humor. So yeahm there's that.
> 
> Also.... I have a surprise for you guys. This is how I pictured Mila's and Victor's costume. The lineart is sloppy because I wanted to post the chapter asap, but I hope you like it :)
> 
> [Costumes!](http://vittarius.tumblr.com/post/156726512953/costume-design-for-my-fic-synchronized-hearts)  
> Hehehehe


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